


And Then There Were None

by Getit199, LogicalPremise



Series: Premiseverse [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7428637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Getit199/pseuds/Getit199, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicalPremise/pseuds/LogicalPremise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Of Sheep and Battle Chicken : And Then There Were None</p><p>(AKA The Sexual Adventures of Shepard Featuring Naked Thane)</p><p>Not.</p><p>A/N and Intro:</p><p>Welcome to OSABC: And Then There Were None. ATTWN is a continuation of my AU rewrite of Mass Effect 1, titled "Of Sheep and Battle Chicken". This story covers the period of time from the end of ME1 to the beginning of the two years before ME2. It's a story about the trials and tribulations of one Sara Ying Shepard, a story about maturation, about overcoming pain in one's past, about having a kinky ancient asari for a father-in-law, and about god-stomping the shit out of Batarians.</p><p>In case the story summary eluded you, this is FShep/Liara. Other pairings include Joker/Tali, Garrus/OC, Ash/Kai (but Kaiden is teh ded), and Chakwas/OC (eventually). Things you will not see include a stupid Council, moronically evil Cerberus, weak-ass turians, or pretty much anything that Bioware half-assed. The story runs on the Rule of Crazy Awesome, so in game terms the setting is a mix between Insanity and Easy.</p><p>It's also a story about the difference between being a martyr and being a hero.</p><p>As an aside: This is rated M for strong language and heavily violence. While there are a number of sexual innuendos, there are no explicit sex scenes in this work. Given my version of Shepard's proclivities, that's probably for the best.</p><p>This is an AU (Alternative Universe) fic. I have taken a shotgun to canon in every possible way, and if you think I changed things up in the first story, you are in for a treat. That means you will be completely lost if you haven't read the first story – and if you click my profile, you can see other supporting documentation that fleshes out the backstory of the universe, such as the Cerberus Files, the Systems Alliance Order of Battle, and the Encyclopedia Biotica.</p><p>None of these are required reading, but if you ever wonder why salarians operate in bullet-time, asari have biotic lightsabers, and the entire universe is a vile, conspiracy ridden shithole that makes 40k look like My Little Pony...you may wish to check them out.</p><p>This linking piece is something I've always wished Bioware would do. I never liked the fact that barely a few weeks past defeating Saren, Shepard got killed. No promotions, no new ships, nothing but "go hunt Geth". No military force is that stupid. At the very least they would have given her some awards – something. Instead we got no real 'closure' at the start of ME2. Do not even get me started on the stupidity of Shepard falling through the atmosphere and doing anything but burning up entirely and splattering on an icy rock. I fixed that too.</p><p>The story is told in five arcs.</p><p>The first arc covers the aftermath of Shepard's promotion to Major of Marines, and serves as prologue.</p><p>The second arc covers Shepard training under Admiral Ahern at Pinnacle Station.</p><p>The third arc covers her leave period, and some other minor fluff.</p><p>The fourth arc covers my version of Bring Down the Sky.</p><p>The fifth arc is the fall of the Normandy, and the recovery of Shepard's Body.</p><p>Hopefully I can get this completed in short order. (Progman, stop laughing at me)</p><p>Before we start this trip, I want to bring up a story. A story that has not gotten anywhere near the proper number of reviews. A story that is so goddamned brilliant I feel like a hack compared the writer. That story is "Living an Indoctrinated Dream" by Aberron. If you like my writing, check his out.</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of Sheep and Battle Chicken : And Then There Were None
> 
> (AKA The Sexual Adventures of Shepard Featuring Naked Thane)
> 
> Not.
> 
> A/N and Intro:
> 
> Welcome to OSABC: And Then There Were None. ATTWN is a continuation of my AU rewrite of Mass Effect 1, titled "Of Sheep and Battle Chicken". This story covers the period of time from the end of ME1 to the beginning of the two years before ME2. It's a story about the trials and tribulations of one Sara Ying Shepard, a story about maturation, about overcoming pain in one's past, about having a kinky ancient asari for a father-in-law, and about god-stomping the shit out of Batarians.
> 
> In case the story summary eluded you, this is FShep/Liara. Other pairings include Joker/Tali, Garrus/OC, Ash/Kai (but Kaiden is teh ded), and Chakwas/OC (eventually). Things you will not see include a stupid Council, moronically evil Cerberus, weak-ass turians, or pretty much anything that Bioware half-assed. The story runs on the Rule of Crazy Awesome, so in game terms the setting is a mix between Insanity and Easy.
> 
> It's also a story about the difference between being a martyr and being a hero.
> 
> As an aside: This is rated M for strong language and heavily violence. While there are a number of sexual innuendos, there are no explicit sex scenes in this work. Given my version of Shepard's proclivities, that's probably for the best.
> 
> This is an AU (Alternative Universe) fic. I have taken a shotgun to canon in every possible way, and if you think I changed things up in the first story, you are in for a treat. That means you will be completely lost if you haven't read the first story – and if you click my profile, you can see other supporting documentation that fleshes out the backstory of the universe, such as the Cerberus Files, the Systems Alliance Order of Battle, and the Encyclopedia Biotica.
> 
> None of these are required reading, but if you ever wonder why salarians operate in bullet-time, asari have biotic lightsabers, and the entire universe is a vile, conspiracy ridden shithole that makes 40k look like My Little Pony...you may wish to check them out.
> 
> This linking piece is something I've always wished Bioware would do. I never liked the fact that barely a few weeks past defeating Saren, Shepard got killed. No promotions, no new ships, nothing but "go hunt Geth". No military force is that stupid. At the very least they would have given her some awards – something. Instead we got no real 'closure' at the start of ME2. Do not even get me started on the stupidity of Shepard falling through the atmosphere and doing anything but burning up entirely and splattering on an icy rock. I fixed that too.
> 
> The story is told in five arcs.
> 
> The first arc covers the aftermath of Shepard's promotion to Major of Marines, and serves as prologue.
> 
> The second arc covers Shepard training under Admiral Ahern at Pinnacle Station.
> 
> The third arc covers her leave period, and some other minor fluff.
> 
> The fourth arc covers my version of Bring Down the Sky.
> 
> The fifth arc is the fall of the Normandy, and the recovery of Shepard's Body.
> 
> Hopefully I can get this completed in short order. (Progman, stop laughing at me)
> 
> Before we start this trip, I want to bring up a story. A story that has not gotten anywhere near the proper number of reviews. A story that is so goddamned brilliant I feel like a hack compared the writer. That story is "Living an Indoctrinated Dream" by Aberron. If you like my writing, check his out.

 

* * *

**THE FIRST ARC : MAJOR CHANGES  
**

" _Never forget the best weapon any soldier has is their mind, and the worst weakness is their emotions." – Major Kyle, 'Reflections of the Lion'_

* * *

The endless black curtain of space shattered in a blaze of light as the long, low shape of the Alliance cruiser Accra erupted from FTL, lightning flickering briefly over the pale white surfaces of the ship. Ahead of her, backlit by the awesome swirls and storms of the gas giant it orbited, the bulk of Arcturus Station loomed. A thousand ships moved in complicated patterns from the edge of the station, some flickering into FTL with a displacement of space, others flaring thrusters to dive down towards the inner solar system.

The Accra smoothly accelerated, bursts of energy flaring as it lowered it's kinetic barriers on approach. Aboard the vessel, a calm voice rang out over the 1MC announcement system, almost droning in it's pitch.

"Attention. All hands prepare for docking. Engineering, draw core output down to nominal levels. Tech-team Three, report to docking connector bay two for hardlock systems checks."

Major-Commander Sara Shepard sighed as shudders ran through the frame of the small cabin she was assigned. Her dark black hair fell in limp curtains around the dark features of her face, cold blue eyes boredly scanning over the datapad in her hands, lips drawn down into a scowl. The cabin she was in was spartan and mostly bare, boasting a narrow bed, a set of lockers, and the small desk and chair unit she was sitting at. Like most Systems Alliance warships, living space was at a premium, and even with her new rank and importance, she didn't rate much more than bumping the XO from his room.

Still, it was better than making the trip stuck in a hibernation coffin. The people she had brought with her – Liara, Tali, Pressly and Joker – were given smaller cabins, somewhere on the second deck of the ship carrying her to her new command. Only by dint of a long and tedious amount of haggling with the SA Bureau of Assignment had she been able retain command of any of her marines from the Normandy. Senior Chief Emilo Vega and two Drop-Assault Combat Troopers, Sergeants Jack Florez and Uriel Montoya were the only ones she could hang on to, since Ownby and Haskins would require months of rehabilitation, and Chief Haln had been given a honorable medical discharge due to his injuries.

Ashley Williams, of course, both pregnant and still wounded, couldn't make the trip, and it was likely she would be reassigned elsewhere anyway. Her old engineer Adams had been given a promotion and a job aboard a dreadnaught, and a berth near his wife, so he was happier where he was. The rest of her old crew was still on the Normandy, locked in repair cycles to fix the battering the frigate had taken in the act of chasing down Benezia.

The rest of the crew she would need for her new command would be assigned at Arcturus Station...where they were now docked. With a sigh, Shepard tucked the padd into her shipbag, sliding it along side her journal and a light pistol. Pausing to make sure she'd left nothing behind in the cabin, she picked up her duty duffel and exited the cabin once the final lurching motion and heavy clangs reverberating through the ship let her know docking was completed.

The corridor outside was standard Alliance. Heavy white bulkheads, steel decking, a foam-sprayed overhead festooned with cabling and TDL piping. Arcane letters were embossed on the walls to identify electrical access hatches and damage control equipment, and blocky lockers jutted out at just the right angle to painfully crack against an elbow if one wasn't careful.

Still unfamiliar with the layout of the Accra – she'd only been aboard two days, and much of that time was spent with Pressly going over command requirements – she managed to find her way to the main assembly deck. The deck ran half the length of the ship, a combination of assembly hall, galley, and lounge for the ship's crew. Equipment lockers hung from the junctions of bulkheads and overheads, while rows of tables dominated the center of the room, arranged around a haptic display screen showing recent news and entertainment.

Shepard glanced around, not seeing any of her crew, but before she could look her name was called from behind. She turned to see Captain Charles Swinton descending the stairs leading to the CIC. The commanding officer of the Accra came up to her, his slender figure almost comical against the bulky outlines of his uniform, his hair hacked down to stubble in a spacer's cut.

"Major Shepard. As you can probably tell, we are docked. Already getting priority traffic for you and yours to disembark, ma'am." He handed her a padd, it's surface covered in glaring red graphics indicating high security orders. "My men will offload any luggage you have, and the ships steward is collecting the rest of your command team. It's been a pleasure having you aboard."

She nodded, remembering she should smile at the man. "Thank you, Captain. You run a tight ship. Where should I go to meet up with my crew and board the station?" She glanced over the padd as she spoke, rolling her eyes at the fact that simple orders telling her to meet with her liaison were classified higher than the design specs of the Normandy.

Swinton pointed to the far end of the deck. "Docking bay two, ma'am. They're running across the hard-locks now. Should be someone there from the Admiralty waiting for you with transport."

She nodded, and he saluted, which she returned before walking away. The uniform she wore was no longer the comfortable and shapeless undress of a line officer, but the elaborate leather-paneled uniform of a command officer. The hanging gold chain and higher collar bothered her, and the heavy gold epaulets on each shoulder almost felt as if they were pressing down on her.

Still, she kept her head high and her face blank as she walked the length of the deck. Sailors and marines stared at her in poorly hidden fascination, which was nothing new.

Butcher of Torfan. Savior of the Citadel. Baroness. Twice awarded the Star of Terra. Less a person and more a collection of media perspectives, rumor, and hearsay, she doubted any of them could understand the living hell and journey of pain and growth she'd undergone the past year.

Not that it mattered. She had Liara. She had David. She had Kahlee and Aethyta, Tali and Joker, Garrus and Tel, Pressly and Jiong, and of course General Von Grath. Hell, she even included Udina in her 'list of people that made life worth living'.

_Let them stare._

With a slight grimace she stepped through the heavy bulkhead doorway, a twinge of pain in her thigh reminding her that, even with modern medicine, she'd very nearly died not too long ago fighting Lady Benezia. The thigh wound had healed, but the bone was a touch weak, and that wasn't including all the other assorted injuries she'd collected in the chase and final fight.

Many people thought she was a lethal warrior, but sometimes she felt like she got by with more luck than skill. Some enterprising hacker had managed to get a hold of the surveillance footage in the Council Chamber. While thankfully there was no audio, the video of the fight was impressive enough for most people to be overawed. Yet when she had looked at it, at her own actions in that fight, she only saw her getting her ass beaten like a drum. Fighting a biotic warrior who was killing back when humans were still using swords wasn't easy.

If not for Liara, there were several times that Benezia would have splattered Shepard's brains over the stupidly opulent Council Chambers.

Turning down a narrow, armored corridor, she was lost in her thoughts. The bag over her shoulder made it a bit hard to maneuver as the ship's company began to head to the disembarkation area, and several times she brushed past sailors and techs. She decided to stop woolgathering when she nearly shoulder-checked an inattentive marine into a wall, and apologized with a mutter.

Passing the last of the crowd, she saw an asari in a SA officer uniform, next to a quarian female and a single human male, all gathered in a tight knot near a massive airlock that already stood open.

 _Her_ people.

Walking up, she nodded to Liara first, then to the rest of the team. "Everyone have a good trip? And where is Jiong?"

Joker, unsurprisingly, was the first to pipe up. "Haven't seen him. He's probably off terrorizing the ship's XO or something. And no, the trip sucked. Whoever the pilot is needs to trim up his drive alignment, I could feel the ship shaking even from my cabin. And I'll never complain about the coffee on the Normandy again. Ugh."

Tali shrugged, after giving Jeff a look. "I didn't really feel comfortable wandering around. Some of the sailors gave me strange looks." Tali had made slight modifications to her suit since Shepard talked her into joining the SA fleet military – rank stripes carefully painted on her left arm, quarian fashion, and the SA logo and her name were neatly stenciled across her chest. The SA was apparently working on a uniform code for quarians, but it wasn't completed yet, so Tali could pretty much wear what she liked.

Liara, on the other hand, was wearing standard SA undress blues, which Shepard felt looked disturbingly good on her, emphasizing her figure in ways they'd never done for Shepard. "The ship's library was quite extensive. I spent some time looking into your fleet regulations. They are not far different than the security and discipline agreements I had to work under for many archeological digs."

Joker rolled his eyes. "And back to the science again."

Pressly walked up a moment later, his own shipbag slung over one big shoulder. "Your marine team is being offloaded now, ma'am. I've already messaged Arcturus Command of our arrival and our transportation is waiting. Commissar Jiong messaged me a few minutes ago, he will be along presently after he reports to the regional Commissariat command."

Shepard gave him a wide smile. "Pressly, what would I do without you?"

He only shrugged. "Just doing my job, ma'am. I'd rather do my job than have to do yours. Too much shooting for my taste." He turned to glance Joker. "But speaking of taste, and with all due respect...couldn't we have found a less mouthy pilot?"

Joker snickered, and Shepard found her spirits lifting. "Let's get a move on, people."

The trip through Arcturus Station was an eye-opener for Tali and Liara. Few non-humans ever visited the massive station, home not only of the main command of the SA Second Fleet but also where many Senators and other government officials resided. Half the year the SA Senate convened on Arcturus, dealing with laws and issues affecting the SA outside of the Sol System.

The station was gigantic. While no match for the sheer mass of the Citadel, it was still more than two miles long and nearly half that in depth. There were two pieces to the construction – a spherical core, mostly living spaces and business areas, and two long 'wings' that angled away from the core at ninety degree angles, filled with docking areas, warehouses, and industrial parks.

Transport through the station was done with line-cars – maglev vehicles on long powered tracks, each one holding twenty people or tons of cargo. Shepard and her team were on one such vehicle now, the endless ranks of warehouses and storage bays in the port docking flashing by in smears of gray and Alliance white.

The mag-line dipped under a heavy armored bulkhead, angling down and then leveling off to enter the Sphere. It was a huge open space, with much care taken to provide a natural setting near the center. Rows of windows jutted from tall racks of buildings that extended from the curving walls, while smaller buildings were centered around platforms built up towards the middle. The floor of the Sphere was flattened, filled with small buildings, a lake, and groups of imported trees and grass from Earth.

Tali smiled. "It's like a miniature Presidium..."

It was Pressly who spoke next. "Yes. It used to be much different – a lot more utilitarian, all ugly buildings and the like, but after humanity got a chance to see the Citadel, President Jackson spent large amounts of money refurbishing Arcturus. He wanted aliens who saw the Gateway to Sol to be impressed with our race, and … well, I think they got a bit carried away."

Shepard snorted. "A bit?" She pointed at a long series of metallic walls framing various tanks of water, each containing certain kinds of sea-life from Earth. "They built an aquatic zoo!"

Liara nodded. "My people would find that an attractive area. The landscaping is very elegant..."

Shepard only snorted.

O-ATTWN-O

It took a good three hours to get the ball rolling. She had to hustle Liara and Tali over to the main Administrative the two of them for their ranking aptitudes, since neither the asari or the quarian had any SA military background. Then she and Pressly had to hunt down her Marines, and their gear, and get them to a barracks. Finally, she met up with Jiong briefly before sending him and Pressly off to gather up the rest of her command team – whoever they were – and for Pressly to get ops orders and check out the state of the Kazan.

After all of that, she barely had time for a quick meal at a fast food stand before she report to her liaison Following the instructions on the padd she'd been given on the Accra, she arrived at what the sign out front said was Special Operations Command. The office building she entered was pure Alliance in it's architecture – sweeping lines, white armorplast and gray bulkhead plating, plain blue and white carpeting. Inside, a disgustingly handsome ensign with stars in his eyes leapt to attention and said he'd take her to her new office.

She was escorted to an upper floor, passing a series of smoked-glass rooms and strange signs such as 'Exfiltration Debrief – No Admittance' and 'Sanctioned CI', eventually reaching a large office overlooking the central park area of Arcturus through a series of wide windows. The brass nameplate on the door read "Maj Shepard, CO BG Chiron" in deeply embossed lettering, and the room beyond was luxuriously appointed.

A heavy desk of black armorplast dominated the room, it's surface half taken up with haptic screens, a large chair behind it. One wall was covered with a haptic map of Alliance space, the other with empty shelving, a small doorway half open showing a bathroom, and a set of lockers. Thick carpets covered the floor and two crates of something marked 'Admr. Supp. , Misc' took up a corner of the room.

Standing in the room as Shepard entered was a young woman in a sharply-cut suit of pastel blue and white, with an SA pin on her lapel. Her honey-blond hair was almost severely cut, long bangs framing a beautiful but cold face, with the same hard eyes as President Windsor. Her voice was an even , calming contralto, and her posture was almost military in it's bearing.

"Welcome, Major. This will be your office and duty station when not onboard your new ship. I'm Elizabeth Windsor-Turham, your liaison officer and technically your link to Uncle James. Have a seat."

Shepard nodded, shutting the door behind her, and walking over to the desk. She sat down almost experimentally in the heavy leather chair, even as Elizabeth pulled up another comfortable chair and placed herself in front of the desk, her hands holding a thick padd.

Shepard exhaled. "Still getting used to this, ma'am."

Elizabeth inclined her head slightly, an eerie copy of the motion Shepard had seen President Windsor do several times. She seemed naturally elegant and refined, in a way that made Shepard feel a little clumsy and plain, but the crispness of her speech gave her no time to reflect. "That is to be expected. You have been elevated to the heights of human society, in terms both military and socially. But we have little time to allow you to settle into your new post, I fear."

Shepard arched an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that I was going to be given training and time to get used to this situation. Is that not the case?"

Elizabeth waggled a hand. "To a degree. However, I'm afraid in the past twelve hours certain political realities have changed the plans my uncle set up, and we will be forced to move more quickly than originally anticipated."

She tapped the padd. "My uncle is under siege, Major. I am not exaggerating in this. He has found evidence, based on several factors, that elements within the structure of the Systems Alliance are moving towards some larger goal, one he worries is not in the best interests of the SA. He has suspected this for some time – hence, his plans to utilize you being expressed as far back as your meeting on Noveria – but information he says you gave him, as well as information from unnamed sources, has him worried. He feels he may be removed from office or even assassinated if he pushes too hard to stop these influences."

Shepard scowled. "He's the President. Can't he just send in the AIS and Commissariat to clean whoever is behind this out?"

She shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. His powers are sharply limited by the Alliance Charter, while his enemies are both a danger to his political goals and the safety of the SA. To recklessly presume the AIS or the Commissariat are not in league with them would be premature at this stage. Additionally, given the delicacy of the issue, Uncle James is reluctant to force things now with an uncooperative, alien-hating government and a fleet that is in tatters."

The young woman exhaled, firming her jaw. "In many respects I wish this was simpler, but there is every possibility my own life is in danger, and so is yours. Thus, we will be forced to move swiftly, but in such a way that hopefully the forces arrayed against my uncle – and you – will think you are no longer a threat to them. With that in mind, I do not expect you to care much or assist with the political side of things, but your assignment to his personal command will require you to understand the larger situation in some detail."

With that, Elizabeth brought up the big display screen on one wall. "Your first task is command training and a shakedown cruise of the SCH Kazan, your new command. We've done what we could to get you the best crew on short notice. They won't quite be the elite crash-team of the Normandy, but each one of the ratings and NCO's will have at least five years experience, and your marine regiment all are experienced A-rates, with some … interesting additions."

The map flared. "The shakedown cruise will be simple, traveling from Arcturus to Watson to finish out the armaments of the ship, and engineering and combat drills on the return trip. You will have an escort of four destroyers, but they are not under your command and are there only in the event someone attacks the Kazan. Your XO, Chief Engineer and Science Officer are being briefed right now on their roles in this evolution, but it should be a fairly simple trip. Questions so far?"

Shepard shook her head. "None, ma'am, except the obvious – I assume the ship has been outfitted with stores, supplies, and the like? What are we picking up at Watson?"

Elizabeth nodded. "The ship is fully loaded, except for torpedoes for the center-line launcher. Techs at Watson have come up with a three-stage torpedo using degenerate matter carefully mined from a neutron star near Perseus. This new torpedo should have nine to ten times the yield of the old M-AM matrix torpedoes. Additionally, you'll be loading the new model M11X Sharktooth missiles, replacing the Spearfish."

She highlighted a section of the map, drawing a line from Watson to Arcturus. "You will perform weapon calibration in deep space on your return trip. Once everything checks out, we'll discuss the second phase of your in-brief before you ship out to Pinnacle Station. The agreement you reached with Admiral Retham throws a wrench into the deployment plans we had in mind … but after some thought, I believe that having older frigates and damaged destroyers gives us an opportunity."

Shepard frowned. "I'm not sure I follow. I agreed to the trade because … well, the Fleet needed them more than I did. But how is that an opportunity?"

The younger woman shrugged slightly, cutting off her padd."My uncle already has assignments planned for you, but it's clear you will require some training before those can be undertaken. That gives us time to refit and repair the vessels in your command … and since they are ineffective as they are, they will be test-beds for experimental new programs and armaments. Rather than repair them to original spec, some will be converted to missile units, or sensor units, or assault craft. This should give you additional flexibility that five Normandy class frigates wouldn't be able to match in terms of specialization."

Elizabeth stood. "You have two hours before the rest of your command team arrives. We've found a competent Navigator, of course, but you will also have to do an in-brief for your new BDO. A cruiser also has several other officers that you will need to brief. Your command team will arrive at 1500 sharp in this office, so I recommend you carefully read over the requirements and the plans of the day for your trip to Watson." She paused, thinking.

"The first phase of the plan is not much changed from our original concept. For the moment, I doubt you will be in any danger. It is the next phase after this where danger will begin, so use this opportunity to improve not only your command ability but your readiness for combat, if you can. I cannot say more at this time – to be honest, Uncle James is also keeping me in the dark to some degree – but I will be in touch upon your return, Major."

With that, she left the office, shutting the door behind her. Shepard looked across the office that was now hers before sighing. "Fuck." Deciding she'd review the stuff waiting for her in a minute, she fished a cigarette out of her uniform and searched for a place to smoke.

O-ATTWN-O

Meeting her command team was an interesting experience.

At 1500, Liara, Pressly and Tali entered, followed by Joker. A moment later six other humans entered, followed by the limping form of Commissar Alfred Jiong, wearing his usual black coat, red sash, and peaked cap, but using a cane.

Shepard had used the time to read up on the roles and responsibilities of each officer, and had their dossiers uploaded to her desk comp, but had never been in complete command of a battle group before. Reviewing their information had reassured her that, at least on paper, every one of them was solid, although the comm tech was very light on practical experience and the supply officer had no space-side chops. Still, they would do their duty, and with Liara and the gang to back her up, she was more worried about how they would interact than how well they did their jobs.

She was also able to pull up some information on the existing crews of the rest of her fleet, but skimmed over it and then dismissed it. Given that her ships were going to be put through dry-dock and rebuild, she doubted their existing crews and captains would stay in place. Still, two of them were coming to this meeting as well, the two most likely to hang around, so it would be a good time to get a feel for them too.

She'd gotten the ensign downstairs to bring more chairs into her office, and gestured everyone to sit. "Alright, people, let's get started. I've never done this before, so if I'm a bit informal, well, get used to it."

"I'm already familiar with the officers I brought with me, but for the sake of everyone getting to know each other, we're all going to introduce ourselves. I'm Major-Commander Sara Shepard, CO of the Kazan and Battle Group Chiron. I'm an N7 biotic specialist in the Vanguard program, formerly C7 and A6 rate marine, and I've passed level IV and level V command, ops, and engineering classes. My previous command was the Normandy, a stealth scout frigate. My specialization in naval terms would be weapons systems, but I'm qualified if not experienced in piloting and CIC ops. My personal pet peeve is people who don't tell me everything I need to know up front."

She turned to Pressly. "Commander Pressly."

Pressly straightened his uniform. "Commander Charles Pressly, O6 CIC, P5 Weapons, rated Navigator, level nine. Seventeen years service, four as an A-Rate marine, P4. I've passed level V command, engineering, ops, and service classes and am a Q3 rated naval pilot. Previous commands were the New Orleans as Navigator, the Normandy as Navigator and then executive officer. Specialization is in CIC battle ops and ECM deployment. I strive for excellence in all things and expect everyone under Major Shepard's command to do the same."

She nodded. "Commissar Jiong is my political officer. Alfred?"

Jiong took off his hat. "Commissar-Captain Alfred Jiong, Systems Alliance Commissariat. I'm afraid very few of my skills translate cleanly into the MCV rating, but I'm roughly on par with an N-series marine in terms of combat ability, and my shipboard specialization is encryption systems and basic ops and ECM handling. I do have some skill in both engineering and weapons, but not to the level that I would stand a watch comfortably. I have extensive xenology training and speak asari and two salarian cants, along with some turian. As with all senior commissars and like the Major here, I am a qualified biotic, and I assisted Major Shepard during the last stages of her mission against Lady Benezia."

He paused. "You will note there are non-human crew members here, namely Lady Liara and Ms. Zorah. If I have a pet peeve, it would be if citizens of the SA – which both ladies are – are subjected to bigotry or racist remarks. If anyone has a problem serving alongside people who risked their lives to protect us all, then you will wish to find another berth, for I have no tolerance for such. Other than that, I consider my primary focus to assist Major Shepard, not to police the crew."

She smiled. "Thank you. What he said goes double for me. Liara and Tali aren't just crew, they are my very close friends. If it's a problem working with them, let me know now, not later."

No one spoke up, and she smiled. "Good! I don't have to throw anyone out the window. Let's proceed."

Shepard glanced at Joker. "Ah, right. Lieutenant Commander Jeff Moreau. Callsign Joker. Q7 rated naval pilot class fifteen. No, I didn't misspeak. R6 rating small craft. Nine years of service. Lead pilot on the San Angeles and secondary pilot on the Calais, and primary pilot on the Normandy. Specialization is flying my ass off. I really hate it when people assume since I have medical issues with my bones that I'm helpless. Seriously, don't do that."

Shepard sighs. "You'll get used to Joker. Unfortunately." She glanced at Liara.

"Y-yes. Lieutenant Liara T'Soni. I believe I will be … promoted … to Lieutenant Commander once we are formally assigned to the Kazan, where I will be the Science and Intelligence Officer. I have been given a rating of K7 xenology, asari as well as a provisional Y3 R&D Rating, subtype space. I posses a doctorate in xenoarcheology and Prothean studies from the University of Serrice, and was a practicing archeologist prior to all of … the past year. According to the gentleman I spoke with at the administrative building, I also have the equivalent of a C7 biotic rating. My specializations include Prothean history and technology, archeology, geology, planetary physics, and xenological survival. I am afraid I have no prior service with the Systems Alliance...but I spent five years training with asari commandos under the instruction of a war priestess, and was a part of Shepard's team that stopped Saren and … Lady Benezia." She paused. "I am too new to all of this to .. have pet peeves?"

Shepard smiled, and glanced at Tali'Zorah. "I am Tali'Zorah nar Kazan, daughter of Admiral Rael'Zorah vas Alarei. I am a Lieutenant , provisionally a Lieutenant Commander, and Chief Engineer of the Kazan. I have passed an examination of level V Engineering technology given to me by a rated Chief Engineer, and taken the tests to posses a M6 engineering rating and a E4 damage control rating. I have three years experience working with engineering systems, including a year spent on the Normandy, and I spent two years training with the Migrant Fleet Marines. I was also part of Shepard's team. I specialize in ship systems and omni-repair systems. My only problems are with people who forget my name and call me 'quarian'."

Shepard smirked, and pointed to the first man she didn't know well. He was tall and barrel chested, with heavy muscles. His face was slightly familiar to Liara and Tali, but they didn't know why until he spoke. His features were dark and even, his brown eyes almost amused and his chin covered with a thin non-regulation goatee.

"I'm Lieutenant Tyrone Cole … the son of Master Chief Gregory Cole." He saw the flicker of grief on the faces of Shepard and Liara but continued. "I just completed Officer Training School, but I spent seven years as a B-rate on Horizon, and three as an A-Rate marine in the Sixth RRU. I have a J3 first aid responder qualification, level II security systems training, and I'm a R2 small craft pilot. I also have my authorization for N1 training to begin whenever I get time in my duty schedule. My specialization is direct assault and I'll be the ships Battle Duty Officer, ma'am." He folded his arms. "My only pet peeve is that I don't like marines who don't push themselves."

Shepard nodded. "Lieutenant … your father was a key part of my team. We miss him greatly, and I'm glad you decided to take this position...even knowing he fell under my command."

Lieutenant Cole snorted, in a way that sounded almost identical to his father. "Ma'am, with all due respect, that's the reason I am here. My father was … very, very proud to serve under you, on the Normandy, fighting to protect us all. He never wanted to die in any other fashion than he did – talking shit, standing on his feet, and making sure the job got done. And from what little they tell me about Eden Prime, if not for you he would have died there." He smiled. "I'll try to live up to the standards he set, but I'm afraid I can't fire a Revenant LMG one handed or choke out a geth."

At that, Shepard had a memory of Cole doing just that and laughed. "Well said, Lieutenant. Welcome aboard." She turned to the woman sitting next to him.

The woman was slightly built, with darkly tanned skin, dark wavy hair and serious if slightly nervous blue eyes. Her voice had a rich English accent with a hint of a stammer. "Ensign Samantha Traynor, ma'am. O3 Communications specialist, Comms Officer for the Kazan. Graduated Oxford University summa cum laude, two year OCS scholarship through the SA. Five months active service. Qualified as a level nine communications tech, and I speak asari, both dialects of turian, fleet-service quarian, and nineteen salarian cants. I'm trained in multispectrum data communications routing and second level intelligence support services, so I will be reporting to Lieutenant Commander T'Soni. I .. uh, don't have a lot of practical experience, ma'am – this will be my first ship posting. B-but I was the first of my class in all aspects of my job. Ma'am." She looked a mix of defensive and defiant, and Shepard smiled.

"We all start somewhere, Ensign. I'm not exactly sure what the hell multispectrum data communications routing even is, but that's why you have the job. If you're here, you are one of the best the SA has to offer. Welcome aboard."

"Thank you, ma'am. I won't let you down, ma'am."

Shepard turned to the man next in the line, who gave a nod. He was lanky and rather thin, with fading blond hair cut short, calm gray eyes, a narrow beak of a nose and bloodless lips. His voice was very deep, but he spoke rapidly and with a heavy Arcturus accent. "Lieutenant Commander Jerred Colms, ma'am. I'll be your weapons officer. Eight years experience on the Orizaba, the Orleans and two years with BuWeapons. P6 weapons tech, O3 targeting systems and CIC integration. Level V ops and weapons certifications. I helped design the new Kyle-class torpedoes we'll be taking onboard at Watson, and I have a doctorate in particle physics. Graduated from ArcTech, so this is my home. Had to beat out ninety-six applicants for the position. I'll also assist in maintaining the armory. Pet peeve is people who don't' take care of their weapons... doubt that will be a problem with you, ma'am, or Lieutenant Cole."

Shepard nodded. "Are you familiar with the rest of the Kazan's weapons systems, then?"

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. The core of the ship is built around a mass-effect accelerated torpedo launcher. The acceleration solves the old problem of torpedoes taking so long to get on target – this launches them at a good fraction of light-speed, before enemy ECM can even respond. Main guns are three 27mm MA cannons and a 17 mm inline mass accelerator rated at 1.8 MeV with a slug mass of 11.2 pounds. Four 9mm MA turrets, port and starboard, with 280 degrees of rotation. Three banks of stage IV GARDIAN lasers, using chemically accelerated red-orange frequencies. And two banks of missile tubes, four per bank, with a ripple fire rate of six missile per second for nine seconds. Total torpedo capacity is forty, missile racks hold eight hundred missiles."

Shepard whistled. "Alright, you know your stuff backwards and forwards. Welcome aboard." She glanced at the man next to Colms, who coughed.

The man was a touch out of shape, but his jaw was firm even if it had a slight bit of stubble near the left ear. He was shaved bald with an SA tattoo barely visible on his neck and a scar bisected his cheek, trailing over his right eye. His eyes were black, or very dark brown, and his uniform was a bit rumpled. "Lieutenant Dallas, ma'am, Anthony Dallas, Ship's Supply and Logistics Officer, L6. Five years in service, but it's all been planetside, mostly running supply and logistics chains for Fifth Fleet's groundside units. However, I did serve nine months as a ops ensign in the _Solguard._ I'll keep us up and running, your marines in good armor and your ship in coffee that doesn't taste like garbage. I fear I'm a bit out of practice in the physical department, but I can work out now that I'm not buried in paperwork sixty hours a week."

Shepard nodded. No matter if the guy seemed a bit flaky, anyone good enough to serve in the _Solguard_ was bound to be excellent at what they did. Service in that task force was very nearly a holy thing for SA personnel, only the very best could even hope to serve. "I'm afraid I have rather unconventional ideas about how my marines should be equipped, Lieutenant."

He grinned. "So I've heard. BuSups was pissed at you for your stunt in buying armor for your Marines, but I thought it was a great idea. Given how famous you are now, you could probably talk some big shot armor designer into equipping your whole force at reduced cost."

She grinned. "Not a bad idea. We'll come back to that." She turned to the last two figures, sitting a bit apart. "Neither of you are on my crew, but introduce yourselves nonetheless, please."

The older man spoke first. His hair was neatly cut but going a bit gray at the temples, and his features were lined, giving his dark gray eyes a sense of heavy weight. "Captain Michael von Khar, squire of the DMKoA , Marquis of Charleston Beach. I'm the senior destroyer commander of Battle Group Chiron and your squadron XO. Twenty one years of service. I haven't gotten my admiral-designate qualification yet, and I doubt I will given my age, but I'm happy to be of service. My ship is the SDD Mindoir, third gen destroyer hull. I was assigned to the 69 Scout, but I'm happy to be with your group after that ugly fight at Terra Nova. Thank you for picking us up, the Fleet was planning to give us four days repair and send us up against the geth."

Shepard shook her head slowly. "My very first rule is that no one under my command gets fucked by the SA penny-pinching bean counters any more. I've lost too many good soldiers to that shit. Your ship – all the ships under my command, actually – will not leave dock until I am personally satisfied they are ship-shape and each CO is confident at taking them out into a fight."

Captain von Khar nodded. "That's a relief, ma'am. Our duty in the squadron – the destroyers, that is – will probably be as flankers and pressure units, backing up the big guns on your monster of a cruiser. We'll have to sit down and go over tactics once we know what our mission tasking will be."

Shepard nodded, glancing at the other figure. A slender woman with straight blond hair and narrow, almost slanted green eyes, her uniform was immaculate and her posture rigid. "Yes, ma'am. Commander Rachel Gatlin. I'm the senior commander of the frigate group assigned to you. I've been in service for eleven years and this is my first command. My ship is the heavy missile frigate SM Thermopylae. Right now we're also in need of drydock, we're a second-gen class and I'm afraid both our electronics and cooling systems are very much out of date. My crew is mostly newer enlistees, with a handful of officers pulled from ships destroyed in the Battle of the Citadel, so we have a lot of training to do. I'm also pulling double duty as the squadron liaison officer to BuPers, so I'll be vetting applicants to join the crews of the destroyers and frigates in the battle group. I'm very excited to work with you, ma'am. My family was on Dirth when you saved us all."

Shepard smiled. "Your people saved themselves, Commander. I just helped." She exhaled, and pulled up a screen on her desk. "Now that we all know each other...it's time to go over our tasks. Thanks to the fact that our fleet got the shit smacked out of it at the Citadel and Terra Nova, we get to be the tip of the spear for a series of tasks coming straight from President Windsor. But before we can do that, we have to get our shit together."

She brought up a map on the wall, and smiled. "Let's begin."

O-ATTWN-O

The briefing took a good two hours, during which time Shepard began to learn about her new team members.

Cole, like his father, was silent for most of it, only speaking up about what touched on the marine contingent. That hadn't even been put together yet – Cole's impression was that they would be assembled at Pinnacle Station.

Jerred Colms was brilliant and memorized facts instantly, but a touch reactive to perceived criticism. He had lots of ideas, and enough practical experience that he could point out improvements in the planned schedules of tests, but little tolerance for the questions Tali had about how the weapons systems would affect the experimental new mass core of the Kazan.

Liara and Traynor got along wonderfully, but Traynor was both a touch nervous and a bit star-struck. Shepard resolved to work that out of the girl ASAP.

Anthony Dallas, despite his lack of experience on shipboard ops, was the most useful when it came to planning how to load the weapons and make sure the Kazan was supplied properly. He had connections everywhere, and if he was a bit prone to taking shortcuts, she couldn't fault his enthusiasm.

Tali had a long list of things she wanted to check on the Kazan and was clearly impatient to get started, while Joker's only contribution – as usual – was a series of wisecracks and jokes that kept the meeting from getting too boring.

Jiong merely observed, except for a few minor questions regarding ship security.

When it was all said and done, Shepard smiled. "Good work, people. Captain von Khar, Commander Gatlin. Have your ships ready to depart for Pinnacle Station when we get back from our shakedown cruise. We'll tow the Silverfish, since her core is still out. Joker should enjoy that."

Ignoring his rolled eyes, she continued. "The Kazan should be ready for initial inspection tomorrow morning, if this report I have is accurate and not a pile of BuShips BS, which I highly doubt. Assuming it is correct, Pressly, have the crew squared away and ready for departure by 1500. My understanding is that the crew aboard is mostly a skeleton commissioning crew stiffened by officers and enlisted from other ships lost or crippled at the Citadel, so it's up to you to whip them into the kind of team we had on the Normandy. Tali, Liara, Jerred, Anthony – review the officers answering to you and your senior NCO's and flag anyone who can't or won't do the job properly. If anyone has a problem with the way you run things they can get the fuck off my ship."

She turned to Jiong. "I assume we have barracks or staterooms or fucking something assigned to stay in?"

Jiong smiled. "Already handled. Given the situation, I've arranged hotel rooms at the Arcturus Arms until I can work out more permanent arrangements, but I should have everything wrapped up shortly."

She chuckled. "I knew you would be handy. Make sure Tali has anything required for her special needs ready to go by the time we get back."

Tali tilted her head, and Jiong smiled. "I am looking into the possibility of obtaining a certified medic with experience with quarians as well as a clean room, Ms. Zorah. I'll keep you appraised of what I find out."

Tali stammered out her thanks, but Shepard waved it off. "Alright, it's getting late and I'm hungry and tired of being in this damned uniform. Dismissed. Liara, hang around a bit." She smiled as the group filed out, Jiong being the last to go.

The door closed behind him, and Shepard laid her head on the desk. "This is … a big job."

Liara smiled. "It is no less stressful for me, Sara. I fear I will have to do a great deal of work on areas of science I have not paid much attention to. The science suite aboard the Kazan sounds very well equipped, but I do wonder if there will be any resentment from those answering to me about my position, given my lack of – "

Shepard looked up and shook her head. "There better not be, or I'll see if I can keelhaul someone in space. Do not take any shit from the staff working for you, Liara. Hopefully everyone will have enough brains not to fuck with someone who biotically piledrives geth collosi, but if anyone causes trouble, let me know."

Liara gave a wider smile. "I am withdrawn, Sara. That does not mean I am … meek. Perhaps a little of you has rubbed off on me, after all."

Shepard nodded, then grinned. "More than a little, if what we did at the hotel a few days ago is any measure. I could barely fucking walk the next day, Liara."

Liara blushed, but also smirked. "If I had known you would pass out halfway through, Sara, I would have gone slower."

Shepard shivered, then shook her head. "Let's find someplace to eat and relax, evil woman."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The focus of this story will mostly be on Shepard and her team, but it will cut away at times to other viewpoints. It won't be the constant shifting perspective of OSABC's final chapters, but some understanding of why things proceed along the lines they do is needed so that people aren't left going "WTF".
> 
> Most of this chapter focuses on the new OC's – Tyrone Cole, Jarred Colms, and Anthony Dallas. Each one is a unique take on a character Bioware fucked up. I'll leave it up to you to match the OC to the Canon Character. One is obvious, one is subtle, and one is a rather warped interpretation.
> 
> As I've warned before, the earlier chapters are more fluff and exposition than action, but that changes in later Arcs, have no fear.
> 
> Update: 9-25 : Fixed a few typos, although Shepard does have beautiful hips.

  


* * *

" _There are two sides to everything … unless the very concept of sides is merely our perception,not reality"_

_– Lady Benezia T'Soni – 'No single raindrop blames itself for the Flood'_

* * *

The SCH Kazan was a beautiful ship.

Shepard felt a sense of satisfaction just looking at the lines of the heavy cruiser. Like most Alliance cruisers, the ship was three blocky wedges arranged in a triangular shape around a center-line hull, four engines melding smoothly with the hull near the back. Unlike most cruisers, however, these engines – gigantic Briggs/Royce Combine hyper-mix thrusters five times larger than the Normandy's engines – were mounted on pivots, allowing vectored thrust and improved ship handling.

The hull was gleaming white, trimmed in Alliance blue and highlights of black. Two bold red stripes ran under the name, surmounted by a gold star, signifying the ship's CO had been twice awarded the Star of Terra. The heavily reinforced bridge sat atop the cruiser's spine, protected by curved sheets of duraplate a good foot thick.

A dizzying array of cables, pipes and hoses ran to and from the ship along the service gantry, a mix of VI-controlled repair bots and dockworkers in off-white one piece worksuits scrambling along the hull. The Kazan was still in drydock, a pressurized work area with atmosphere, but even now the last of the ship-systems were being brought online and a set of mass effect cranes was connecting to the hull, preparing the shift the ship to a deep space berth.

Once she'd only dreamed of space, playing with a battered old model of an Alliance frigate or wondering what it was like to walk among the very stars. Now she was in command of this beautiful ship, and the lives on it were hers to guide and keep safe.

_I will not fail._

Shepard, after gazing at the ship a bit longer, turned to Pressly standing next to her. "Status?"

The balding XO folded his arms, arching an eyebrow. "Fairly good. Not quite as squared away as the launch of the Normandy, but we're on schedule, at least. Met with the Navigator and Lead CIC Coordinator yesterday, they both seem solid. Tali is already onboard terrorizing the engineering staff, but from her initial report BuShips actually didn't screw anything up with this one. The Tantalus-II core is operating at 6% draw, but she tested it up to 120% with no out-of-band misfires and only one mass disruption, well within safety limits."

Shepard nodded absently. "Of course, we won't know for sure until it has to trigger a relay, will we?" She sighed. "What about the crew?"

Pressly gestured to an open assembly area visible through large windows in the distance, along the far wall of drydock. "NCO's and junior officers are getting them together now. Complement is mostly complete." He pulled out a padd.

"Twenty-eight officers, including you. Two warrant officers – one is down in primary engineering, the other is in weapons. Ninety-six non-commissioned officers, three hundred eleven crew, six fighter pilots, three fighter support officers, thirty nine fighter support and repair staff. The ship's marine company is one company. Ninety soldiers, six officers. First detachment is A-rate marines. Standard formations. Second detachment is a mix of N-level soldiers, DACT, and some info-war scout-snipers. Third detachment is a mix of A-rates and heavy weapons, and fourth is actually a lance of battlesuits – six older Agamemnon suits, and the lance officer is in a Thermopylae suit. All in all, very solid layout."

Shepard tilted her head. "Impressive. Armor assets are always a plus...speaking of which, do we have vehicles?"

Pressly nodded, checking the padd in his hands. "Two MAKO tanks. DACTs will hot drop, the spec-forces have inline drop-pods, but they can fit into the MAKOs if we need conventional drops. The ship is too big to land on a surface but we also have a combat-rated pinnace alongside the fighters."

Shepard smiled widely. The President definitely hadn't skimped on outfitting her with every possible advantage. "Sounds like things are going well. Is everyone accounted for and ready to roll?"

Pressly sighed. "No. We're missing our ship's doctor and the medical staff. Also, Jiong was supposed to have three or four Commissariat types on board, he says they've been delayed. We have enough rated medics on board that I don't think it will be a problem to do the shakedown without them, but we obviously won't be able to test the medical area and trauma center."

She nodded. "Have Dallas inventory the medbay and make sure we have full loads on required medical supplies, and make double goddamned sure we loaded asari and quarian blood plasma and dextro-compatable medicines. I'm _still_ pissed General Von Grath stole Chakwas away from me..."

Pressly did not snicker, but made a curious noise in the back of his throat and struggled to conceal a smile. "Yes, ma'am."

Shepard shot him a deadpan look. "Traitor. Anyway, have the crew group up by division, I'm supposed to trot out some kind of speech, I suppose. We get any word yet from the Chief when his people will get the fuck off my ship and we can space this bitch?"

Pressly consulted the padd again. "Another hour. Ship should be clear by 1100. Arcturus has cleared us for departure at 1500, and the destroyer squadron is already in system and waiting. I went ahead and sent the mess deck cooks and deck division on board to prep the ship and make sure lunch is ready to go once the ship's clear."

Shepard nodded. "Alright then. I'll head over to the staging area and .. say something .. speechy. You take care of the rest of it."

Pressly nodded. "No problem, ma'am."

Shepard watched him walk towards the ship, before looking around and finding the nearest mag-lev car, which she hopped aboard. "VI, staging area nine."

The vehicle accelerated smoothly, and Shepard tapped her omni, sending a message to Liara. A few moments later she got her response.

_In staging area nine, Sara. Waiting for you to arrive. Crew is calm. Tali not here. -_

Shepard nodded to herself, and tapped her commlink on the omnitool. "Tali, status."

The quarian's voice sounded aggravated. "The bosh'tets who did a systems check on this ship before testing the engines should be shot, Shepard. None of the fuel lines were pressure tested, and all of them had material leaks. I've already replaced the connectors and retested, but now I'm worried about whatever else we might find."

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. "Run a system check of the entire fuel system, then, and have your team double check the life-support, HVAC, and cooling. If none of those are jacked up, we can at least get into space without suffocating or dying of heatstroke, or having the ship explode. Once you have those five by five, run a level five check-series on the flight control surfaces and the trunk electrical systems. The rest we can find during the shakedown, that's what it's for anyway."

Tali huffed. "Quarians wouldn't launch ships that weren't 100%."

Shepard grinned. "No, they probably wouldn't. But we humans are dumb. And honestly? I expected problems. As long as they don't affect ship safety, I'm inclined to let them go until we can get a hold of the designers to fix the issues, and not merely have us patch or bypass them. I'm not ignoring the problems, and trust me, I will put my foot up someone's ass for this, but … let's just say we're on a tight schedule. I trust you to handle anything that comes up engineering-wise."

Tali's voice had a slight warble of gratitude. "Thanks, Shepard. This will take another hour or so to sort out, did you need me and the first engineering shift dockside?"

Shepard checked the chrono on her omnitool and spoke. "Nah. You've heard my speeches before anyway. Just make sure if anyone gives you shit you let me know."

Tali didn't say anything for a long moment. "Everyone has been … very respectful. A lot of them ask me things to see how much I actually know, but no one has been rude and they all address me as Lieutenant Commander Zorah. I guess I got used to the informality on the Normandy...should I be calling you Major all the time?"

Shepard snorted. "Hell no. I dragged you with me because Adams and everyone else says you're the best engineer they've seen, and because I know you won't half-ass things. There's a time for unit discipline and proper modes of address, and that's when the brass is hanging around. The rest of the time you can call me Sara for all I care."

The quarian's voice was warm. "Thanks...Sara. I've got to get back to work, but … could we talk a bit once we get going? A-about... Jeff?"

Shepard arched an eyebrow, wondering what that could be about. "Sure, but I'll warn you that I'm not as good at counseling as Wrex was."

Tali laughed as Shepard disconnected, and squared her shoulders. "Time to meet the troops."

O-ATTWN-O

Jerred Colms stood at perfect physical attention as Shepard began speaking to the assembled crew of the Kazan, but he didn't pay much mental attention to her words. He'd seen commissioning speeches before, and if Shepard was a bit more direct and less flowery than other CO's he'd served under, it still wouldn't change the undertones of her speech – work hard, team spirit, rah rah rah. Go Blue.

For a man with a genius level IQ, photographic memory, and twenty-six patents under his belt, Jerred was often underwhelmed by his co-workers, and found very few people to be his actual intellectual peer. It was isolating, in it's own fashion, but it was isolation he selected. He had interacted with people of his own mental level before and come away fascinated by their own flaws and weaknesses, so he knew – intellectually – that he had his own.

He just couldn't see them. Given his past, it wasn't surprising, he supposed. The fact that he was the best weapons engineer in Second Fleet, perhaps in the entire SA, wasn't a matter of pride so much as a forgone conclusion in his mind. He'd been the best all his life. He'd had to be, to pursue his dream.

Top of his classes in college, wooed by every major university on Arcturus and even some from Earth itself. Full scholarships merely on the strength of his test scores. Graduated college at 19, had his doctorate at 22, founded a company at 23 and sold it for twenty million at 25. He'd signed up with the military both to challenge himself and to put him in a place to further his dream, rather than out of any patriotic duty, and he'd torn through the ranks at a meteoric pace. He'd never married but dallied with the daughters of famous business moguls and senators, and made connections that would aid him in breaking the last boundaries of the military.

He was well on target to hit commander and qualify for his own ship after this tour, and after that the Admiralty beckoned. He had no doubt in his ability to achieve it, his natural talent and aggressive pursuit of his chosen vocation had impressed those near the top of the Alliance military for years. But he didn't push himself out of any ambition for power or glory, or even money.

His only true ambition – one that had driven him nearly his entire life – was developing the next generation of weapons, ones so _terrible_ , so _powerful_ , that his name would be immortalized. Ones that would ensure humanity wouldn't be the damned underdog.

Ones would ensure no other people went through what he did.

He could never forget the fire pouring out of the sky when he was seven years old, trapped on Watson with his parents during the pirate attack, watching so many Alliance marines and civilians die even as their weapons did little against the incoming horde. Never forgot those needle-teeth batarians laughing as they shot anything in their path.

Watching his parents come apart in front of his very eyes, splashing him with their lifeblood as they'd hidden him away from the pirates at the cost of their lives.

The SA had built up Watson since then, with missile bases and defenses and fleets, but that day he'd decided he wouldn't have to ever go through that feeling again. It became his passion, and drove him towards his current path. Everyone had a passion, and his was in the understanding of the fundamental forces of physics and energy that made space combat possible.

He couldn't bring back his parents. He couldn't undo the privation he'd had to endure, being orphaned, dropped on Arcturus by some oversight in the refugee care system. But he could apply his brilliance to the root cause of the issue, and derive satisfaction and fulfillment from knowing that one day, when pirates attacked, or war broke out, or the geth came again, that they would taste and know defeat, written in the particle beams and accelerated mass packets that were his design

Then his parents could rest. Only then would he feel comfortable pursuing his businesses again, or trying to build a family.

Passions were what drove people. And with that understanding in his mind, he knew that Shepard – driven by her own passions – would be a key part of his own goals. She had a skill that he didn't, one that he needed. That alone would have sparked his interest, but she offered more. She had connections, she had power, she had the eye of the galaxy on her. If he could sway her thinking towards his, then his goals would be brought about that much faster.

But what to think of her? He watched her move across the stage. A beautiful woman, but supposedly ice cold and lethal. Rumors, stories, and presumptions surrounded her, obscuring whatever the truth was of his new CO.

He didn't care much about Shepard's background, her reportedly icy personality, her vicious combat style or even the gauche rumors swirling about her command ability. So she had gotten a bunch of no-account jarheads killed on some icy rock? Marines were a dime a dozen, siphoned off from the poor from the arcologies and the restless from the colonies. If getting the job required their sacrifice, wasn't that what the SA Marine Code stood for?

Nor did he care much for the fact she had stopped a major galactic threat. That's what heroes and Spectres and those kind of people did, after all. If not Shepard, then Branson, or some other gun-toting ape with more muscles than brains. He was thankful in a disassociated way, of course, and it was useful in that it gave her greater influence, but it wasn't what drew his attention.

Her social rank was irrelevant, given that it was just handed to her. She could use that in time, but not now, and given the political issues on Earth right now, not in the near future. She was astonishingly good looking, but he was always honest with himself about attractions and sex, and she just wasn't his type, to be honest. Besides, there was a sense of awkwardness and playfulness in her interactions with the asari woman that hinted she was already involved.

None of that mattered anyway. He'd pushed and angled for this job not because Shepard was a fearsome warrior, or connected politically, or had saved the galaxy, or even due to her beauty. He'd taken it because he'd been one of the few people to see the blueprints of the Oracal Demolitions InciNdiary shotgun she'd designed, the ODIN.

It was, to him, a work of art and beauty. Savage, unrefined, built for nothing less than the utter demolition of whatever it struck. And then he'd found out Shepard had designed dozens of other weapons, but had never submitted any of them. She'd fallen away from that work in the aftermath of the ODIN's unsavory reputation, the collapse of Oracal Demolitions, and her own issues, whatever they were.

The ODIN was a teasing hint into her ability. A weapon that could, if widely deployed, make a mockery of charging biotics, stubborn krogan, or heavily armored turians. He could and had developed weapons for ground use before, but compared to her design they were clumsy and inelegant. What could she do if they worked together, he filling any gaps in her deeper understanding of the mechanics, she using that astonishing creativity? Could she aid him in designing space weaponry as well, or even entirely new weapons concepts?

It was a heady thought, and one that drove him to literally crush every other applicant for this position, unleashing the full force of his genius and education for the first time in years. And when she'd casually shown that slovenly supply officer what she needed to build a new kind of sniper rifle, off the cuff and drawn on a napkin, he'd known that his idea would work. She had not lost her skill even after all these years.

He was sure that, with the proper prodding, he could get her to design weapons like that again. A mind like that was criminally wasted on gallivanting about shooting thugs. She could, with the proper guidance and assistance, help influence the next wave of weapons design for the Alliance Military. And help him with his own dreams.

His friends, few as they were, said he was obsessed with weapons – a fair complaint. But everyone, in his experience, was obsessed with something. Some with money, or sex, or power, or acceptance. Obsession was what made people tick, and it was how Jerred was able to break down and manipulate those around him.

And he would have to do the same to Shepard, he saw now. She wasn't someone who just accepted people blindly. He searched for clues of how to begin, watching her as she paced back and forth across the platform, her voice ringing with conviction.

Despite her habit of blanking her face and concealing her emotions, the Shepard he saw in the briefing room – and the one addressing the crew – was not a truly emotionless person. She was someone who didn't understand emotions and their responses entirely, but was trying to. He'd seen many people like that – researchers, focused on the next big thing. Tired worn out soldiers, too battered to process any longer. People who'd lost their way, either by disconnection from humanity or focus on something too clinical to maintain the bonds that kept them human.

Jerred was sure that the woman had lost her way simply because she had nothing to protect, nothing to fight for. It was clear in hearing her talk now to the crew, her protectiveness. This was a woman who had fled from contact with other people because she had to throw them away to achieve her goals, and was tired of it.

He gave a thin smile. People made too much of a fuss over deciphering other people. Groups like Terra Firma screamed about the alien and how different they were, but he'd worked with enough asari and salarians to realize they simply looked at life different. They weren't strange, just _different._ They ate, slept, laughed, cried, and feared. Bigotry towards them was a waste of time when you could instead take advantage of that different viewpoint to see things you'd otherwise miss.

Likewise, he didn't put much stock into so-called 'first impressions' and judging people by their pasts or rumors. No one let you see the real person on a first impression, so all you saw was the mask put up to present an idealized image. You had to see past that, over time and through watching their actions and reactions, to see anything worth analyzing. And people changed. If past behavior was an ironclad determinant of future actions, understanding people would be simpler, but it never worked that way.

People emphasized the wrong things in what they looked at in others, and then were shocked when their badly placed beliefs turned out wrong. Jerred was a master of that, using people's misconceptions to both understand how and why they thought that way, and to cloak his own disdain for most people.

As Shepard continued to speak, he reassessed everything he knew about her. Biotic, which gave her a measure of separation from normal humans. Bad childhood, criminal past – probably burdened with guilt, and yet more pragmatic than normal people clinging to childish beliefs. Lifelong military, compounded by her status as a Z2 – no life outside of the SA military, then. No real chance to relax and enjoy herself. No real understanding of social concepts the military never included. Loyal to her friends – fiercely so. Past betrayal by someone close? Or merely clinging to those few who saw past the scars?

Most importantly, and something he suspected most people missed – a fear of failure. Whether driven by her past failings and betrays, or by her isolation in a military culture and her biotic background, she was driven by the need not to fail those who mattered to her. That much was writ large in everything he knew about her, from her military record, the small number of people who truly knew her, the attention to detail in the briefing – even the sheer flawless nature of her uniform. It was the cause of the protectiveness he had noticed. She pursued perfection through hard work, and would only respect people who did the same, not out of wanting to be the best, but fear of not being good enough.

_Yes._

He nodded to himself, keeping the smile on his face as his thoughts clicked together in his head. Now he knew how to approach her. Relying on his natural genius would alienate her or make her feel stupid. Better to present himself as a hard worker, long hours, determination. She was probably not yet comfortable with her new rank and titles – make a show of being unused to such and ask if she preferred formal or informal address. Obviously not used to small talk or getting to know people – use interest in weapons as common ground, downplay past and focus on wanting the best to protect 'her people'. She wouldn't care much about his own tragedies...but protecting , that she would like.

His smile widened, even as his eyes narrowed. She would be the kind of woman who didn't coddle people, expected them to step up, show their value. He wouldn't wait for her to task him with work but make aggressive suggestions.

If he played his cards right, she'd grow comfortable with him, and once he was assured that when he spoke she would listen, he'd share his dream.

O-ATTWN-O

Standing at something like attention on the other side of the line of officers in front of the crew, Anthony Dallas was, he concluded, bored. His nose itched, and he couldn't scratch it without breaking attention. Shepard wasn't a martinet, not based on the words coming out of her mouth, but he didn't intend to give her a bad impression any more than he already had.

He just wanted to scratch his nose so he could be comfortable.

Much of his life had been spent in the pursuit of mediocrity and contentment. Too poor to afford college, tired of being little more than a wage slave in decaying economy in the Miami Arcology, he'd had both ambition and drive in his youth, joining the SA in a patriotic fury, mastering the skill sets thrown at him. He had only been a ops tech for a month before he was tapped for OCS, graduating as an ensign and ready to face the galaxy.

The proudest day of his life was when he'd been selected to join the ranks of the _Solguard_ , the elite defenders of Sol itself.

He'd worked hard, driving himself to fifteen hour days mastering his job, and spent nine months pushing that forward. Then the budget cuts came, and there was a force reduction, and despite all his hard work, his sweat and pride, he was cut, shipped off to Grissom Station on Mars, and stuck on monitoring airspace defense nets.

It affected him, greatly. He couldn't bring himself to push himself again, knowing it would amount to nothing in the end. Why bother?

It had been mere luck that got him saddled with double duty as supply officer of the facility, the original qualified officer dying in a freak suit accident. He'd done his job the best he could, losing himself in the minutia of the supply and logistics system to stave off despair and boredom.

Then he'd gotten a few requests for some 'off the books' supplies from one of the regimental combat teams. Rather than deny it, he pushed it through, covering it in the annual resupply confusion, mostly because the cute redheaded sergeant that had asked him for it had a nice ass and he figured he could talk her into a date for repayment.

He quickly discovered the supply officer of the base had more power than he thought. He was the one who managed to get extra suits of armor or medipaks when the budget didn't allow it, or upgrade the coffee from milspec to a civilian blend that didn't taste like oil sludge. He was the one who threw together 'supply security' details that allowed the bored marines to get back to Mars City and party for forty eight hours.

Trading little favors for other favors or an increasingly wide set of sexual conquests made him reconsider his position, and he threw himself a bit more into mastering logistics, eventually applying for a service transfer. Here, as in other future postings, his tour with the _Solguard_ convinced people he was more skilled than he seemed.

He spent four years bouncing around comfortable duty stations. He didn't consider himself corrupt so much as flexible. He didn't sell SA material to outside sources, or anything criminal like that. But he wasn't averse to letting bored marines slip their own shipments into the supply paks, things like cigarettes, alcohol, even marijuana. He made plenty of connections with various duty officers, mid rank base officers, attaches – anyone who might need extra supplies here, or a cover for some office romance or a quick getaway.

He'd decided at some point that being the best was a shell game. You could bust your ass and still lose, despite how much effort you put into it. He focused instead on being satisfied with life and being comfortable. He stashed away the small bribes he got, used his connections to get him the kinds of postings that would keep him safe and comfy, and messed around with a handful of women who repeatedly needed his 'help' with the sort of things he could reroute.

When the transfer to Fifth Fleet's ground-side bases came along, he certainly didn't fight it – being stationed on Bekenstein was a blast,and supply runs to the Citadel were the holy grail of less-than-textbook supply officers. Bekenstein's marine contingent also had a fair number of asari in it, and he'd spent maybe a bit too much time learning about the wonders of going blue.

In fact, he'd spent so much time messing with asari girls that he'd stopped paying attention to transfer orders coming through the system. He'd been caught flatfooted by the sudden transfer to the Kazan, but he didn't even have time to try to fight the transfer before two Commissars had arrived at his duty station to 'escort him'. That had lead to a completely terrifying conversation with a Commissar in a lift-chair named Jiong, whose smile reminded Dallas of a cat gazing upon a crippled mouse.

He shuddered when he recalled the conversation.

"You are no doubt wondering why a man of your middling skills and fairly low rank would be picked to serve as Supply and Logistics for a command as prestigious as this, Lieutenant Dallas." Jiong had tapped a finger on a padd, scrolling a long list of line items Dallas recognized as cargo transactions. "Especially given your … non-compliant attitude towards shipment integrity and filing factual supply transportation manifests."

The man's smile had turned icy. "The Commissariat is everywhere, and we know everything. We did not act before this because, truly, the mischief you've achieved is minor compared to less wise supply officers who actually sold SA material to pirates. They are all dead. Your acts, however 'harmless', have possibly damaged unit readiness and exposed security flaws within our system, and the accounting for such is now coming due."

Jiong tapped the screen again. "You can do one of two things at this point. Through either scraps of what you call charm or the weak-minded nature of others, you have enough connections that,in normal circumstances, you could weasel out of this reassignment. If you do so – if you even attempt to do so – you will be arrested by the Commissariat, branded a traitor to the state, chemically castrated, shot, and thrown in a ditch to fertilize the crops on some class I farming commune." He paused. "I threw the castration in there just to be vicious."

"Or, you could accept your job with good grace, and use your … non-standard methods of acquisition and materials handling to procure non-standard and possibly illegal items for Major Shepard. She has a very … different view of how to equip her marines, and while I have every confidence that her ideas are sound, others differ in opinion. Rather than listen to their objections and be forced to assemble what she requires in piecemeal, your skills will let us do so undetected. One cannot object, after all, to that which is unknown."

Dallas had found his voice, somehow. "You want me to procure illegal weapons and armor, mods, ammo? Combat drugs? For the Butcher? Or else you kill me?"

Jiong smiled again. "An admirable summation, minus the fact that you will also need to obtain various black-market materials. Shepard likes polonium in her ammo loads, but was commenting that uranium hexafloride might be better."

Dallas stared at him in horror. "That's against Citadel law! SA law! Fuck, that would set off every radsafe alarm – "

Jiong tapped the pad. "Any man who can smuggle asari call girls, an entire pallet of nose candy, enough alcohol to disable an elcor, and not only get it through undetected but have the charges rerouted to pay for the call girls should be able to smuggle a little ammo."

So, Dallas was stuck.

But when he'd actually seen Shepard up close, he wondered how bad that really was. It wasn't like he minded the job, as long as it was safe. He'd not been a Shepard fanboy, exactly, but he'd kept up with her career like a lot of Marines did. Some Marines hated her for getting a lot of her men killed, but many more admired her for putting her foot up major batarian ass, and bitch-slapping the shit out of Saren had only made them cheer harder.

He admired her mostly for the fact that she could make a set of Cobalt Armor look sexy.

Like most people who didn't know her and could only see the public face, she had seemed icy and distant, a beautiful war goddess that didn't have time for shit like emotions or fear. The breathless and riveting newscasts of her fight against Saren across half a dozen locations had only emphasized that – shots of her cutting through geth, taking out Cerberus guys, all the stories coming off Noveria.

The grainy shots of her fight with Benezia, alongside the asari chick and what he finally realized was the same Commissar Jiong that had shanghaied him, was like something you'd see in an action movie. He'd known asari were powerful, but Jesus.

And Shepard had survived that. So, he was ambivalent about things. Sure, the days of six hour work days, cushy offices, banging girls from the supply cadre or hooking up with that hot asari sergeant in the 8th Armor were over, but he figured he'd get a nice promotion from this. With the big geth ship blown up and the rest running, he doubted Shepard or her ship would be in any real danger.

Then he'd met her and been briefed on what she wanted, and his eyes had nearly fallen out of his head. She wasn't as icy as he'd thought, laughing and smiling just like anyone else. And she was even more fucking gorgeous up close, he had to seriously make sure he didn't check her out too much.

But what had blown his mind were her plans for equipping her marines. She had an in with the manufacturers of Colossus Armor, and she wanted them to custom design marine combat suits. She wanted turian rifles, instead of SA ones, and she wanted salarian grenades. She wanted to retrofit the entire force with omni-shields and omni-blades. And she'd sketched out an idea of a custom rifle she wanted built for the scout-snipers – one she'd basically invented!

He'd be very, very busy. Pulling all this together, keeping it out of the sights of Alliance Logistical Review Command, bypassing customs and finding a smuggler to get a hold of shit like lance cannons and Phaeston rifles – that would be a pain in the ass. The rest of the shit on her list made even less sense, especially an off the record bone and tissue regen system, kinetic silencing dampeners for her quarters, and a medical support robot with codelocks on the VI.

He decided then and there he Did Not Need to Know, and had promised her he'd get it together ASAP. Jiong had given him a wink at that, and he couldn't stop from shuddering at the idea of chemical castration.

_Death was bad enough, but castration? Fucking really?_

And now they were about to head out. He'd already gotten on SASLNet, the logistics system of the SA, and had been calling in favors all day. He'd carefully approached Jiong and suggested that some of what they wanted would be easier to get with Commissariat approval, and was stunned when the man gave him a Commissariat Override PIN. That would allow him to classify and obscure many of the requests he made, with only another Commissar able to see past.

He'd been aboard the ship, briefly – he had nice quarters, not lavish but nice, and his own office – even a staff, a knockout blond bombshell, two cute redheads and a brunette he knew from Bekenstein who'd he'd already slept with . This wasn't so bad, really. Either Jiong was making this easy on him, or he'd just gotten lucky. All in all, this would work out fine. Hell, he might even get promoted from it all.

It wasn't so bad. Except the threat of castration. And having to get back into shape. And shave every day. Still. He could make this work.

Now, where could he get his hands on a goddamned medical VI bot?

O-ATTWN-O

Tyrone Cole smiled faintly as he stood at perfect attention, half his attention on Shepard's speech, the other half on memories.

He wasn't really sure why he was here, if he was honest with himself, and every Cole knew that not being straight with yourself was a ticket that lead bad places. He told himself it was due to the last message from his father, but a part of him was still .. uncertain.

His grandaddy had been a Z1 convict with an addiction to sand and heroin, who'd knocked up his grandma before getting his legs blown off by gangers in the Chi-Town Arcology. After that he'd settled down, marrying Grandma and trying to turn his life around from a rickety wheelchair and zero education.

He didn't know about Momma's parents when he was growing up – she never said anything about them, and asking Uncle Albert had resulted in the old man boxing his ears and telling him to mind his schoolwork. Papa had always gotten an ugly, angry look on his face whenever he'd asked, but never gave him any answers either.

Wasn't until was grown and had access to the extranet he learned the truth – they'd been criminals, a lot worse than his grandaddy. Slavers.

His mom and dad had met in the SA military, and when his mom was medically discharged after losing an arm on Binthos IX, they'd gotten married and had three kids. Tyrone was the eldest, his younger brother Anthony being the smart one and little Jessica going into news-casting. Tyrone, big like his dad and nearly as tough, had signed up for the infantry as soon as he hit 18.

He loved the SA, loved the Blue, loved knowing he was fighting for his family. The stains of the family's criminal past drove his own dad to be literally perfect at everything. It made him a hard man to please, a man who would drive himself to drinking and ignoring his family for long deployments. Greg Cole breathed and lived the SA even more than Tyrone did, and it wasn't until after Torfan and Mindoir that he loosened up a bit.

Tyrone loved his dad, patterning his whole life after his. He wanted to see his dad grin and fling his arm around him, to hear him bragging about 'my boy' to his buddies on Eden Prime. Moving there had cost the family almost everything they saved up, but Tyrone was happy. His momma was happy, Anthony was graduating college and headed to get his doctorate at the University of Chicago, and Jessica had been accepted as an intern with Westerlund News.

Then the geth had come to Eden Prime. Tyrone had been on leave, accompanying Jessica on her trip to Earth when the news had broken. They saw the tower they called home blown in half, bodies tumbling through the sky, black clouds of smoke marring the perfect blue skyline. They watched, crying, as the fields burned.

Tyrone had never prayed much, but he'd fallen to his knees and begged God to let his family live. When he got the message from his momma that she and Anthony had been at Tower Nine shopping and were fine, he'd cried like a baby. When his dad had finally gotten off a TTG message that he was still alive and assigned to Commander Shepard's ship, he'd whooped with joy.

He'd been serious about his military career before, but he kicked it in high gear now. He'd been tapped for OCS just as Shepard was beating the shit out of the geth on Therum,and he'd managed to keep track of the Normandy's fights even while busting his ass in Officer Training. Seven hard months of learning tactics, training, and war-fighting. Working with armor units, gaining new skills.

When he was done, he planned to see if he couldn't get assigned to the Normandy, and fight along side his dad. The old man would get a kick out of being ordered around by his own son.

He'd gotten a message from Dad on Thessia, a video mail – expensive and rare. He'd kept it with him and played it nearly every day, just to hear his dad's voice.

"Tyrone. Here on Thessia, got a bit of downtime. Things are starting to cool off, I think, now that we killed that skank and her boyfriend, so I thought I'd shoot you a line or two. Heard from my pals in BuPers you went OCS – good. I'm damned proud of you, son. Never forget that."

"It's funny, how this trip has gone. Never thought I'd go from pushing boots on Eden Prime to fighting geth, Cerberus and crazy asari tramps. I'm waiting for something to go wrong – I figure that we haven't found that black ship yet, so this shit isn't over."

"No matter what happens, boy, I want you to promise me two things. Take care of Marlene, Anthony and Jessica, if something happens to me. I've spent my days trying to clean off the shame of what Dad pulled when he was my age, and so has Marlene. Now, with all the shit that's happened, I'm sorry I didn't spend more time with you. Telling you how proud I am of the man you've become. I never gave much thought to dying until I came on this trip, but I've got a feeling something bad is yet to come, so you make me proud one more time and take care of your family."

"Second thing. We're both soldiers, Tyrone. We both know that we can get taken out any day of the week. Could die doing something damnfool stupid, like those crazy DACT who are gonna splatter themselves over a rock one day. I don't do bits and pieces, and I never did anything like that. I don't want you to either...but I got something preying on my mind I can't get out."

"Had a conversation with Shepard not long back. It's hard to watch a soldier like her hurting, and knowing there's nothing you can do. She told me she just wanted to die, sometimes, to get taken out and buried so that all the pain would end. I've been where she is. You get there by not remembering that you're not alone. If something does happen to me, and Shepard makes it out alive … she needs a Cole there to back her up. With any luck, nothing will happen. But if it does...remind her she's not alone, boy. And remember that you aren't either. I'll always be with you, alive or dead."

"Bah, enough depressing bullshit. Ain't nothing alive badass enough to kill me, anyway. You take care of yourself. When we get done, you and I will hit the Citadel and get loud. Or maybe come back here to Thessia." His father had grinned, panning the camera pickup to one side, as an asari barely wearing anything walked past.

"Damn shame I'm married."

His father's single good eye had stared out of that message, locking onto his own. "I love you, boy. Tell your brother to stop messing around with that hussy from Tower Six, and I'll be back home in a few weeks. Make me proud."

That had been it. He bit his lip, remembering how happy he'd been to hear those words.

"I'm proud of you."

Then the news from Virmire had come in. The grim visage of Commander Shepard, her face pale, eyes reddened and grieving, describing the fall of Master Chief Gregory Cole. His mother had collapsed, crying and shaking, his siblings had wept and needed a strong hand. The other, more distant family members, awkwardly coming by to offer condolences. The empty steel coffin, the droning voice of the pastor as he'd spoken. Turning the silver star in the narrow window of their new apartment to the blue side.

He couldn't let himself fall apart, like Momma. He'd kept his eyes dry, and been their rock. He handled the burial, the payments, the insurance. He'd moved money around and made sure everything was okay financially. He'd gotten Momma to see a psychologist, spent time with Anthony and Jessica, telling them they'd make it through.

And then he'd put on his dad's expression, and finished his OCS. Before he'd just been determined, now he was driven. He'd beaten out everyone for the position of honor cadet, first in his class, graduate with honors. They'd told him he could request pretty much any posting he wanted, and so sent his request into BuPurs – request assignment to active duty with Commander Shepard.

He knew, watching the news after the battle of the Citadel, they were going to put her somewhere, and he planned to be there. When it came back approved, he'd just packed his bags and left.

Now he was here. He'd seen the look of sorrow and grief on Shepard's face – and more surprisingly, on that of the asari and even the Commissar. He knew it hurt Shepard just to look at him, and see his father's eyes, his father's cheekbones. Their voices were similar, even. A tiny, immature part of him liked that. Served her right for getting his dad killed.

But he knew she hadn't. She was angry at herself, he could see that much, but the pain in that first glance told him that blaming her wouldn't do any more damage than she'd already done to herself. Oddly enough, it had been the Commissar who'd taken him aside after the briefing to explain.

"Major Shepard admired your father greatly, Lieutenant. I think everyone on the Normandy did. He was the most … perfect NCO I'd ever seen, less a mortal and more like duty made flesh. He died in a fashion that was horrifying...and he died with defiance on his lips, making sure the bomb that prevented Lady Benezia's army from being even more overwhelming went off. If not for his sacrifice, I fear the assault on the Citadel would have ended in her victory."

The Commissar had fixed his cold gaze on Tyrone. "I have no clue what drove you to pick this assignment, Lieutenant. But I will say one thing, and you should listen. Do not get yourself killed. Shepard hasn't forgiven herself for your father's death, nor the death of Lieutenant Alenko, the man setting the bomb your father died protecting. Despite her great strength, in many ways she is .. fragile. For you to die in a pointless act would be too much to bear, I think, even for her."

Tyrone had only nodded. "I don't intend to die, Commissar-Captain. I'm here to fuck up some geth and make sure I follow my dad's last request, to take care of the business he couldn't. There was a Cole at the start of this mess, and there will be a Cole here to finish it."

Jiong had raised an eyebrow. "Finish what, exactly? Saren and Benezia are dead, N...the geth ship in pieces."

Tyrone folded his arms. "The Prez didn't give Shepard all this firepower and backup because things were looking like rainbows and clouds. I don't know what's up, but I know my gut is telling me more shit is headed down the pipeline. Am I wrong?"

The Commissar had given a sudden, chilling grin. "Much like your father, you see more clearly than most, Lieutenant. You are not wrong. But keep my words in mind as you follow your father's wishes. I have no doubts he would also not want you to die if it can be avoided."

Tyrone took a deep breath, swallowing, and watched Shepard finish up her speech. It didn't really matter what was coming. Dad always said that you couldn't hold yourself in the past over bullshit that no one could change. He was here to do what he'd been asked, and if that meant being the baddest motherfucker in the valley of the shadow of death, he was ready.

O-ATTWN-O

Shepard exhaled as she finished her little speech, and glanced over her crew. "Alright. As I said, I'm not one for long ass speeches. You know what you are expected to do, and what I expect from you. I will not be happy until any enemy that even sees the Kazan pisses themselves in fear, and to get there each of you is just as important as I am."

"Fall out by division and stand by for the dock rats to clear off. You have three hours to get your shit together and on board. We are leaving at 1500 sharp, and if you miss ship's movement you won't answer to me, but to Commissar Jiong."

The Commissar patted his flame unit with a happy smile, and Shepard smothered a grin when she saw more than one sailor or officer shudder. "Then get to it, Kazan. Dismissed."

She turned to Jiong as the crew broke up into groups, and arched an eyebrow. "Everything ready?"

Jiong nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I've taken the liberty of ensuring the Arcturus media think the launch is at 2000 hours. My sec-team from the Commissariat will be here in one hour, we'll do a walk-through of the ship before launch. I don't expect any issues."

Shepard nodded. "Did you speak with Lieutenant Dallas about the … items I spoke of for my quarters?"

Jiong nodded. "Yes. If anyone can get them, he can. There are more than a few corrupt supply officers in the ranks, but that man is an artist. He's perfect. Slimy, but very creative and he hasn't really broken any laws that would make me have to kill him. I've indulged his tastes in terms of his supply crew and general laziness, but I'm keeping an eye on him. A more conventional supply officer would be useless for what you require - both for the marines and for your … privacy issues."

Shepard shrugged. "It's one thing for the Normandy crew to know about it, another for the entire crew of a cruiser. We'll be discreet."

Jiong sighed, gesturing to a line-car in the distance. "Your discretion is roughly on par with your elocution, Major. I despair at ever augmenting either of them to endurable levels."

She laughed. "And you still need to speak plainly, Black Hat. No one else complains about how I talk."

Jiong rolled his eyes. "Who else would dare?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter that some will disagree with. After the next chapter, the action picks up a little. Like I said, there's fluff and character building in this linking piece.
> 
> Alfred Jiong is the most difficult of my various OC's to write. Jiong's poise, intelligence, and seeming perfection is a mask worn over a deeply unhappy, badly wounded man unable to be himself. An exploration of that and other characters is something I almost did in the first story but found no real opening for, so it's only logical I do so here.
> 
> If at the end you don't hate the SA just a little more... ha.
> 
> As for Shepard's actions at the last, well … Progman reminded me that symbols can be chains as well as reminders. I originally intended for it burn in the wreckage of the Normandy as it crashed on Alchera, but that, in hindsight, would have sent exactly the wrong message. I owe Progman for helping me to pick the right time.
> 
> The Kazan is a heavy cruiser, pretty much almost a pocket battle-cruiser. It wasn't influenced by turian designs, and that will show in the layout of the ship. Visualize it as similar but larger than a standard Alliance cruiser. I'm drawing up the deck plans now, I'll post them on my logicalpremise dot org site later.
> 
> As an aside: Kazan is not only a beautiful city in Russia, but the name of a fascinating book. Check Wikipedia.

  


* * *

" _You can pay a soldier to fire a gun. You can pay him to charge the enemy and take a hill. But you can't pay him to believe."_

– _Admiral Steven Hackett, 'On Conversations with a Hero'_

* * *

"This is Major-Commander Sara Shepard, KoUE, commanding officer of Battle Group Chiron. By order of the Systems Alliance Admiralty, Special Operations, Arcturus Command and Presidential Order 16630, I hereby take command of the Systems Alliance Heavy Cruiser Kazan."

Shepard turned to the dockside commander standing in the hatchway. "Commander Johanson, you stand relieved. I have the deck and the conn. VI, log the time."

Shepard smiled as the man bowed and stepped aside, allowing her to step onto her new command for the first time. She'd spent the past hour or so going over all the blueprints and layouts, but she had to see it for herself before she would feel comfortable.

Unlike the Normandy, the entry dock on the Kazan was a single wide airlock nine feet wide and ten feet tall, large enough to allow even battle suits to exit. A matching airlock was on the other side of the ship, both connected to an armored tube that bisected the fourth deck. The tube was lined with security stations, turrets, barricades and static defenses to prevent hostile boarders.

The rest of the fourth deck, accessible by blast doors on the aft wall, was given over to the marines. Sleeping areas, a firing range, the ship's armory, and the staging and cargo area for the ship's battlesuits and MAKO tanks was on this deck, along with offices of the ship's Battle Duty Officer and Command Master Chief. Forward of the tube was storage for armor, workshops for repairs to the vehicles and suits, and a large briefing area for all hands comms.

Two elevators flanked the doorway. Shepard stepped inside the portside elevator, tapping the haptic panel to take her to deck one. Deck two was crew quarters, the galley, wardroom, kitchen, food storage, ship's lounge, exercise areas, and the medbay. Deck three was officer and NCO country, and the science labs. The damage control shop and weapons battery were also there along with sensors and other electronics. Deck five was the core reactor, cargo bay and engineering, and deck six was only a half deck containing the ships hydroponics area, life support systems, and bulk storage. The other half of deck six was partially open to space, the docking area for fighters and the pinnace, as well as the racks of drop pods for the troops.

Deck one was a combination of the bridge, CIC, and her stateroom and offices. Almost three times the size of the Normandy CIC, the forward area of the room was narrowly triangular in shape, rather than the more curved shape of the turian-flavored Normandy. The front of the deck was the pilot's deck, where Joker and two sub-pilots maneuvered the ship. Directly aft of that was Ops Alley, thirty stations of ECM and sensor operators, curved chairs angled up to face triple panels of haptic screens and displays.

The deck opened sharply after Ops Alley into the CIC proper. The center of the room was the plot, a circular display surrounded by the stations of the weapons operators, the front dominated by the weapons officer's master control panel. Rather than the rather grandiose looking 3-D galaxy map of the Normandy it featured flat haptic displays of the relays, augmented with floating representations of the Kazan and contacts surrounding it.

The port and starboard sides of the room held huge armaglass portals under independent kinetic barriers, allowing a vast view of the outside of the ship, flanked by large haptic display screens. Two banks of consoles were set off several feet from the screens. The port set of consoles was the station of the Science officer and staff, linked to the ships powerful sensor array and collection of probes. The starboard panels had small stations for the comms officer, the duty engineer, and onboard security.

The back wall of the room was taken up by the CO's command station, the two elevators, emergency damage control stations, and the corridor towards her quarters and stateroom.

The ceilings were lower in the Normandy CIC – here , angled rows of displays curved around the elevated CO platform, giving her an instant glance at engine power, core status, shield levels, power distribution, communications and more. A comfortable seat automatically elevated from the ground to snap in place as she approached, a slender shelf splitting apart on top of station to display a computer interface and a collection of ship communications circuits, as well as a simplified repeater that would allow basic course changes, speed control, shield status, and weapons fire.

She glanced around the CIC, noting that already the techs had everything running, and Liara was already standing at the science station, her arms folded and her expression one of fierce concentration as she listened to the enlisted man next to her, pointing out displays. She smiled as she walked past, up through ops alley toward the bridge and pilot area.

Heavy armaplast windows curved sharply around the nose of the room, with two seats sunk into the decking and the main pilot station elevated a good foot. Already ensconced in the chair was Joker, his hands moving almost too fast to follow as he went through prelaunch checklists. "Hey, Commander. I mean, Major. Shit. What's up?"

Shepard snickered. "Checking up on you, Joker."

Joker pulled his hat down a bit and brought up a fuel display on one floating haptic panel. "Anderson used to do that. I know what I'm doing. Brilliance requires focus, and you are disturbing my chi." He nodded sagely to himself, and Shepard shook her head with a small smile at his antics.

The pilot to the left, a slender man with brown hair trimmed close to his skull and a scar on his cheek, snickered. "Major, was the Flight Commander always this full of shit?"

Shepard folded her arms. "He grows on you, Ensign Hemsley. Much like fungus." She glanced at the other pilot, a young woman with flat black hair and Asiatic features. "Seriously, everything is nominal? We already had one issue that would have caused some problems on launch."

The other pilot gave a quick nervous nod, her eyes not straying from her displays. "Yes, ma'am! Secondary flight surfaces reporting green across the board. Dock umbilici one through nine disconnected and visual inspection shows all ports sealed."

Joker tapped a control. "Fuel systems are nominal – thank Tali for me, it would have been no fun flying while on fire from fuel leaks, assuming we didn't, you know, explode. I have main control, Ensigns Hemsley and Li An will be handling secondary maneuver control." He paused. "This seat is kinda stiff, any chance for an upgrade? Or at least a coffee holder?"

Shepard rolled her eyes. "No. I'll be in my stateroom if anyone is looking for me, not that they'd come up here. When we clear all checks, go ahead and set course for the relay. I'm all speeched out for the day. Let Pressly make the 1MC announcement."

Joker nodded. "Yes, Major. See? Learning?"

Pilot Hemsley just blinked. "And I thought I was flaky."

Joker hissed. "You are."

Shepard let the three pilots continue to bicker as she turned on a heel and walked back down the Ops Alley, pausing to nod at Pressly as she passed. "Jiong already on board?"

The big man nodded, scowling at a display before turning to face her fully. "Yes, ma'am, in your stateroom. We're about done with the pre-flight level nine checklist. I just need to finish getting the watch sections squared away and we'll be ready for pullout. The cranes will be moving us to hard space in five. We just need launch clearance and for you to authorize drive release."

Shepard nodded. "Good job. Joker will take us out when it's time, alert the crew if you would, I'll be occupied with Jiong."

She smiled at his nod, walking further aft, glancing over the communication stations and the stiff stance of Ensign Traynor. "Something wrong, Ensign?"

Traynor, absorbed in her displays, gave a slight start of fright, eyes wide. "N-no ma'am. Just running through the countermeasures testing sequences we have. There...ah, there's a communications circuit routed to your stateroom I don't have access to."

Shepard nodded. "Yes. I know. I'm afraid you don't have clearance."

Traynor frowned. "But the entire command crew has Nova level clearance."

Shepard smiled. "The circuit is for private communications either from the President in my capacity as his personal agent, or the Citadel Council in my capacity as a Spectre. You'd need Tantalus level clearance for those. They should be locked out, but whenever one is active, please make sure we have a clear comm signal and engage whatever you can to prevent someone hacking into the call."

Traynor nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I think we have a cross-current circuit amplifier that we could use to lock in a signal to the main … uh. Sorry. I have a good idea of how to get on that, ma'am. Didn't mean to get technical." She paused, and winced. "Not that I am implying you don't understand the technical – "

Shepard gave her a smile, and placed her hand on Traynor's shoulder."Breathe, Ensign. I get it. I may be cleared on electronics and comms, but you're here because you're better at it than I am. If you say it will be secure, I know it will be."

Traynor smiled back, pleased with the praise. "Yes ma'am."

"Good. If anything critical comes in, I'll be in my stateroom."

She entered the corridor leading to her personal areas. She'd come to view the cramped cabin aboard the Normandy as 'home', but she couldn't suppress a little excitement at the upgrade she'd gotten in taking command of the Kazan. She'd been handed the Normandy, after all … but she had earned her current command.

Deciding Jiong could wait another minute or two, she entered her quarters. As with most SA staterooms, it was a squarish block, a good fifteen feet long and almost as wide. Black steel decking served as the floor, a low half-wall bisecting the room with space to walk past on either side. The low wall was the mounting for a work desk and small shelf, and another status repeater display. Tucked into a corner was a small table with three chairs around it, and Shepard smiled to see venting to remove cigarette smoke had already been installed. A sliding door revealed a small armory space.

She walked in, noting the desk had her journal and her personal padd on it, along with two books she'd picked up on the Citadel regarding weapons development. Three haptic picture frames curved around the far end of the desk – one of her and Von Grath, smoking cigars, feet propped up on a batarian terrorist's chest. One of her and Anderson, the day she was made a Spectre. And one she'd taken of Liara, smiling faintly, when they were at Flux the night before departing for Noveria.

She glanced into her armor cabinet, seeing her suit of Spectre armor, and then glanced over the other half of the quarters. A standard SA bunk was against the wall, which looked like it could fold up to make a couch. The rest of the room was blank and plain – two steel cabinets, a standing wardrobe, and a flat-panel door cracked open to show a shower and toilet combination took up most of the space. Her only alteration was in having a small omnifoundry unit tucked in the near corner along with a rack for weapons.

Her ODIN – still displaying melted spots on the rubberized handle from the last fight on the Citadel – was racked there. So was her heavy sniper, Saren's Sunfire-B pistol, and a pair of customized Revenant LMG. The last thing on the rack was a mocking gift from Von Grath – an omnisword, a rod about nine inches long with an augmented power supply and a short, spade shaped blade that when energized created an 550 TeV omnifield.

She smirked as she read the note he'd tied to the hilt – ' _For the next time you are silly enough to bring a gun to a swordfight_ ' – and then glanced around the room. Her Penal Legion blanket, shipbag and personal effects – mostly a single suitcase with a handful of the civilian clothes she'd gotten on the Citadel, her few pictures, and her ship models – were sitting on the middle of her bed. She grunted and turned to cross the narrow hallway, entering her stateroom.

The stateroom was slightly smaller than her living area, dominated by an armorplast desk much like the one in her office on Arcturus Station. A repeater status panel and several other haptic screens dominated the port side of the room, along with a personal comm station. The right side of the room had a series of haptic images of ships bearing the name Kazan – several old naval ships from the Pre-Alliance era, a MKV Cruiser from the First Contact War, and a heavy cruiser of the old style destroyed in the Battle of Horizon. Below this was a low bookcase and a shelf of haptic storage media, probably systems manuals or something along those lines. The floor was thinly carpeted in plain Alliance blue, and the overhead had the symbol of the SA embossed over the thin steel surface.

The desk had a comfortable mesh chair with a liquid-swivel mount base, and she sat down with a small sigh, before glancing at Jiong who was seated in a smaller but otherwise identical chair in front of her desk. "So. We're about to launch."

Jiong nodded. "As a command officer of flag rank, this will be your first assignment where you actually need a political officer. The Normandy was an impressive ship, but hardly a danger to society as a whole. Officers in command of a heavy cruiser or above, much less an entire battle group, are more concerning to the Systems Alliance, since if you went rogue you could pose a threat to a garden world or embarrass the SA as a whole. As such, while you have command of BG Chiron, it is my duty to ensure you are discharging your orders in a manner consistent with SA mandates, Admiralty directives, and where applicable, Citadel treaties and law."

Shepard rubbed her temples. "I figured that much."

Jiong nodded. "It's also my duty to execute you if you become a danger to the SA. On that, I'm afraid my conditioning is rather inflexible. Since we both know how that would end, especially if Lady Liara was present, I would suggest that if you decide to take some sudden, Shepard-like action such as going rogue or mutiny against the orders of the Admiralty that you kindly do so when I'm off the ship. Of all the possible ways to die, being executed by two beautiful women does not top my bucket list."

Shepard laughed. "Aww, Alfred. You do like me."

Jiong sighed. "You are more tolerable than my last assignment...but not by much." He gestured to the safe on the wall, next to her desk. "The ship cannot engage full drive systems or arm any weapons until the systems are removed from codelock. For a frigate that duty was solely up to the CO and XO – here, the Political Officer and CO are the ones who have access." He triggered his omnitool, and she did the same, and the safe unlocked. Shepard pulled out a single laser keycard and then turned it over, frowning.

"I'm used to just a scanstrip." The card glittered in the light, a series of mirrors inside containing a unique combination of data that allowed access to highly secured systems, rather than a printed barcode like she'd seen on the Normandy.

Jiong sniffed. "Not secure enough. The keycard can be inserted into the panel below the repeater display. The VI should decrypt the code and announce the results – as well as our orders and situation briefing."

Shepard arched an eyebrow. "Fancy."

She followed his instructions, and the VI chimed politely. "Scanning. Codes recognized. Welcome, Major-Commander Shepard, Commissar-Captain Jiong. Authorization validated. Weapons and drive systems unlocked. Stand by for orders."

The haptic screen on the far wall flickered into life, the VI's voice speaking even as images flashed up. "From Command, Second Fleet, Special Operations, to Battle Group Chiron, Kazan. Orders are as follows: depart 1500 from Arcturus Station, make standard rated speed to relay to Sigurd's Cradle. Shift to secondary relay at maximum rated speed to Skopsis system. Achieve high anchorage at Watson and dock with Scorpion Weapons Station. Onload required systems and medical team at station. Authorization of no more than five hours for loading and embark/disembark cycle."

"Proceed to shakedown evaluation by accessing secondary relay, Lenal system, at varied speeds for shakedown operations. Turian Hierarchy aware of your presence. Conducted level fifteen engineering subsystem and ops system testing, level ten engine systems testing, and level five calibration battery. Test fire each weapons system and record deformation patterns by targeting asteroids. Conclude testing with full level nine life support, sensor, and fighter launch tests. Stand down from shakedown and return to Arcturus at maximum rated speed. Orders end."

Shepard opened her mouth to speak when the VI chimed again.

"Addendum to orders. Classification Tantalus, Level Nine." The VI's voice shifted to that of Elizabeth Windsor-Turham at this point. "Shepard, be advised that the Kazan has already undergone full testing. Deliberate and easy to identify and fix errors in ship's fuel systems were introduced in drydock to justify to crew the need for shakedown. This cruise will allow you to review your crew, but the real purpose is to investigate anomalous sensor readings we have been detecting near the Lenal system. AIS agents have not been able to operate openly in the area, but we have information from outside sources that a possible Cerberus facility was in the region. If found, capture it intact if at all possible. If nothing is found, make best speed back to Arcturus so you can report onwards to Pinnacle Station."

The VI shut off, and Shepard sighed. "Well, at least we know the shakedown will go smoothly."

Jiong frowned. "That is … rather unusual. Something about this doesn't make much sense. They could have just loaded the missiles and torpedoes on a transport and had us load up here, if we didn't really need a shakedown. Sending a high profile ship with a famous CO and untested crew to check out a possible Cerberus base in turian territory is … "

Shepard shrugged. "Fishy?"

Jiong leaned back. "I hardly wish to cast aspersions on the command structure, and suppositious conclusions are not going to help us in the short term." He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I suppose we will have to wait and see, as there is little aside from speculation that we can do now. Aside from the orders, I have the PRIDE reports for the crew ready. Summaries for general crew, specifics for the command crew."

Shepard grimaced. PRIDE, or the Political Reliability Index for Direct Evaluation, was the system used to evaluate the dependability of SA officers. A mix of psychological evaluation, paranoid snooping, and sociological examination, it always left a bad taste in Shepard's mouth to do the things, much less review them.

Unfortunately, once the Commissariat had learned about the dangers of indoctrination, it became even more determined that PRIDE checks would be done and done often. Taking command of a ship was one of those hard checkpoints that required them.

She nodded. "Alright, I'm all ears."

Jiong nodded, consulting his padd. "I've reviewed the PRIDE ratings of the incoming crew. The lowest was a 3.1, well above baseline. Most crew members have at least five years of service with no serious infractions. The entire crew is human with the exception of two asari in secondary ops, who both have eleven years of service. They are, I believe, commoners – I have already had their division NCO make them aware of the presence of Lady Liara. I have vetted them carefully to ensure they are not spies from the Asari Republic. Other than that, the crew is well-trained and refreshingly eager."

Shepard nodded, and he continued. "The junior command cadre – the navigator, the assistant engineer, the CIC coordinator, assistant pilots, fighter command officer, and the damage control officer – all have PRIDE ratings of greater than 4.0, which means they should give us no problems. Aside from slight hero-worshiping tendencies in the DCO and a good deal of arrogant pride in the navigator, there are no real issues to address. Given that they will mostly interact with Pressly, I doubt you will need much information on them, but I've forwarded their service records to your system."

He tapped the padd. "Which brings us to the command crew, the most critical component of the ship's company. As a point of order, your own PRIDE rating remains 4.2. You will also be happy to note that, since your Z2 restriction has been removed, Commissariat monitors usually installed to follow you around are no longer present – the only Commissariat staff on board beside me are my four clearly identifiable subordinates – Commissar Susan D'Alte and Lancers Jackson and Grassi."

There was a slightly strained note in his voice as he mentioned the same Susan, but Shepard only nodded. "Well, it's good to know I'm not a danger to the SA. Who's up next?"

He looked up. "For the command crew, I started with Pressly. PRIDE rating of 4.7. The man is stable, competent, mildly ambitious, and strong-willed. He has a personal admiration for you stemming from your actions at Dirth – his family was there – as well as professional appreciation. Positives include a high index against treasonous thought, strong pro-human beliefs, and a refreshing lack of personal dishonesty. Negatives are mostly stressors from his divorce and his dislike of turians, which was not aided by Mr. Vakarian's concealment of Ms. Telanya's reasons for being on the Normandy. Psychologically he's a doer and a systems-builder. He likes making things work. He prides himself on details, on picking up pieces people miss and dependability. He has a mild sense of xenophobia but it does not appear to extend to Lady Liara or Ms. Zorah."

She nodded. "I've noticed that. The attention to detail, that is. And Liara says he's … kind."

Jiong nodded and rubbed his chin. "All in all, I'd say there are no worries for your XO. I'm afraid the same isn't true for the rest of your staff, ma'am."

Shepard frowned. "Explain."

Jiong sighed. "With the exception of Pressly, who I just covered and is well within parameters, and the Comms Ensign Traynor, who is somewhat boring and fairly well balanced, each of the command staff have at least one strike against them. While none of them fall below the 2.0 threshold that requires Commissariat monitoring and denial of promotion, none of them are at the expected 3.8 to 4.0 mark we would normally see in command crew. That may bring additional scrutiny onto them and you if there are difficulties in our missions."

Shepard sighed. "Alright. Who's first?"

Jiong tapped his padd."We'll start with Joker. His PRIDE rating was never that high to begin with, currently 2.8. Mr. Moreau isn't here because he has pride in the Systems Alliance, or because he loves humanity, or even because he is ambitious. He is here because he is rather childishly defying both his parents and everyone who expected him to be nothing more than an invalid."

He sighed. "He is immensely talented, very intelligent and surprisingly good at interpreting body language and motivation. He is also very homesick, a borderline depressive-manic personality with a lot of resentment and anger issues. His attachment to Ms. Zorah is definitely not mentally healthy, as their relationship is less based on how they are alike and more on their mutual resentments of authority figures, personal conditions, and a feeling of powerlessness."

Shepard exhaled. "I know Joker's a bit abrasive and he has a chip on his shoulder -"

Jiong shook his head. "Ma'am, I'm not saying this to be a hard-ass or a martinet. If the boy was merely acting out, I would care less. He is unstable. If he's put in a situation where he feels his flying ability wasn't good enough to prevent a disaster, he will come apart at the seams, because that is the only thing in his entire life he can take pride in, the only thing that makes him feel like he's worth anything. If he's force to choose between his relationship with Ms. Zorah and the Systems Alliance, there is every chance he will choose her. The ignorance of previous commands in alienating the boy is partially addressed by the way he looks up to you, but even that is, I'm afraid, tinged with jealousy. The worst part of this is on most levels he is not even aware he feels this way."

Shepard swallowed. "I trust Joker. 2.7 is still above the baseline minimum, yes?"

Jiong nodded. "Yes, it is. I am merely giving you a warning. You have already admitted that you don't always understand people. I, on the other hand, have years of training in analyzing people, psychology, and reams of reports. Tapped conversations. Monitored emails. The point of the PRIDE system is to let you know exactly where your people stand … and where they are likely to cause issues."

Shepard sighed. "Liara, Tali, and Joker made it through the shit we spent the last year doing, Jiong. Doesn't that prove they should be trusted? Are you saying I should get rid of Joker because he's still young and pissed off at God for giving him fucked up bones?"

Jiong stood, and began to pace, his graceful features agitated. "I am not saying that, Shepard. I am saying that yes, some of your staff has proven themselves. They've also taken _damage._ I'm not here to tear down Joker. He's a fine pilot, and in his own way he's braver than I could ever hope to be. I'm not casting aspersions on his feelings towards Ms. Zorah. If he can find happiness that way, more power to him and her. But I cannot – my conditioning and training will not allow me – to gloss over the problems that he, and Liara, and Tali, and the rest have. And you cannot afford to ignore them. The strongest blade will break after enough wear and tear."

His eyes narrowed. "You, of all people, with your experience on Torfan, should know the value of actually understanding the deeper motivations and conditions of your team."

She flinched at that, and glared. "That...isn't fair."

Jiong shrugged. "I don't like it anymore than you do. Less, even. How would you feel if you were brainwashed into paranoid suspicions about your friends twenty four hours a day? If you were made incapable of fully trusting anyone, of having to dole out justice without mercy and punishment without mitigation for an entire decade, all the while wishing and hoping something would change and not being able to do anything about it? I judge because I am here to judge, not because I like it."

He gave her a hard , clear look, and she shook her head. "I'm not going to like the rest, am I?"

He exhaled, and sat back down. "No. I know you hate bullshit and fancy talk, but this is important. You have to understand these things. You are a critical person of importance now. You are the one who most deeply understands the threat of the Reapers. You have the credibility to make people listen, the power to get things done. Mr. Cole remarked to me that our struggle isn't over, the President would not expend all these resources on you for the sake of some political infighting. Would he?"

She shook her head. "No. I can't tell you the details, but … no."

Jiong nodded. "Then listen to me when I tell you something that will save their lives. They all have flaws. I am not talking about their combat ability, or ability to perform their jobs. Lady Liara is far more intelligent than I. Tali'Zorah's hasty examination on engineering concepts showed she was the match of any veteran engineer in the Fleet. Mr. Dallas, for all his quirks, is one of the better hackers and logistics officers I've seen. Mr. Colms is a literal genius with a higher IQ than 99% of the human population. Mr. Cole tore through OCS as if it was boot camp."

His fingers tapped at his padd hard enough to deform the screen. "Their problems are in their histories and personalities, their drives and needs. Those are what you have to understand. If it comes down to it, can I trust Joker to do what's best? No, I can't, because he and I don't see eye to eye on what is important. For me, it is the SA's security – for him it's his friends. Pressly, if he had to, would sacrifice his friends for the SA. You, if you absolutely had to, would sacrifice almost anything to stop a threat to the galaxy."

Jiong looked up. "But some of them will not, and the time for you to know where they stand is not when the chips are down, but now, where you can plan ahead."

She sighed. "Fine. Continue."

Jiong nodded, then grimaced. He spoke of Tyrone Cole's suppressed anger and uncertainty of direction, and warned that the man had already begun to develop a martyr complex He also pointed out that Cole was, according to his records, almost as reckless as his father in combat. While his PRIDE rating was a solid 3.0, Jiong felt Cole needed either a grounding in actual leadership or someone to shake the ghost of his father out of his head.

He spoke of Dallas's lassitude and lack of drive, his womanizing, dishonesty and likelihood to evade danger. He spoke of the man's ability to multitask and see patterns and loopholes, but suggested the man's removal from the _Solguard_ made him doubt his own worth and give up on any ambitions he once had. His low 2.3 PRIDE rating reflected his lack of true belief in the SA and his semi-legal actions in the past.

He touched on the near mania and manipulative tendencies of Jerred Colms, his childhood trauma and his fixation on weapons. In Jiong's opinion, the man was dangerous. He was far too intellectual and analytical to get a good read on, and Jiong had given the man a provisional 2.5 PRIDE rating, simply because anyone that arrogant and convinced of their own innate superiority had not a single self-sacrificial impulse, even if for the greater good of the SA.

He spoke of Tali's isolated loneliness, talked about her nervous and touchy pride, which he suspected was the manifestation of an inferiority complex, and finished by going over her confusion regarding Joker. He feared she saw him in an idolized light, as someone to remove her from her own issues. Her attraction, he felt, held less sense of a sexual interest and more like some kind of romantic, deranged Pilgrimage gift to justify her own lack of self-worth. He hesitated to give her a low PRIDE score since just being non-human dinged it, but he couldn't justify rating her higher than 2.2, which meant she would come under Commissariat review if there was even a single discipline problem.

Shepard listened, holding her temples and occasionally interjecting her thoughts. Halfway through the process, the ship jolted heavily, before she felt the subtle kick of the mass generators creating artificial gravity. Pressly called out for the crew to secure for transit on the 1MC, giving her a moment to collect her thoughts as Jiong fell silent.

That Cole was troubled didn't surprise her. Given Greg Cole's behavior as nearly the perfect NCO, she could only imagine what the man, however good he was as a master chief, had inflicted on his son. Tyrone was going to try and prove himself, if not to her then to the ghost of his dead father, and she knew better than anyone that you couldn't impress the dead. Maybe Vega could talk to him, or the surprisingly philosophical Montoya.

Colms interest in weapons was a bit interesting, but everything else about the man made her dislike him. She didn't know what to make of his decision to react to the trauma in his life by planning to be the next Jason Hadne-Kadar, but that didn't' really matter. As long as he did his job she could care less, although if he tried to manipulate her he was in for the most painful surprise of his life. She worked on weapons to get her mind off the demons in her past, and she made them to protect, not merely to destroy. Colms may have had the same intent, but listening to Jiong describe the man's icy fixation only made her skin crawl.

Dallas's laziness just made her sigh. The man's cavalier attitude towards women pissed her off, but not as much as her attitude towards the women going along with it. The fact that he was capable of pulling together hard-to-get equipment out of the SA supply system – or from beyond it – didn't give him a free pass to goof off. Given that she was going to be using the man's skills to ensure she had privacy with Liara, she wasn't going to crack down on Dallas' womanizing, but that was all the slack she was willing to give. She was going to watch him like a hawk, and if he endangered her crew with his bullshit, he was going through a bulkhead face first.

And if he was fool enough to make a pass at her, she was going to beat him until he looked like a hanar.

Jiong's breakdown of Tali evoked mixed feelings. Shepard had dragged the girl into this whole mess to begin with – first by bringing her along with her recordings, then taking her on the Normandy, then making her part of her strike team, and finally convincing her to join the SA and her crew. It was all well and good for Jiong to complain she didn't have the SA's interests first, no shit. She couldn't really worry too much about that. But the idea that Tali was lonely and clinging to Jeff and doubting herself made her upset and angry at herself. And she knew that it wasn't Tali's fault this had all happened, but hers.

She closed her eyes, remembering the angry words of Tali's father when he'd been told of Tali joining the SA. "I cannot force my daughter to take a different path, Shepard. But if she dies under your command, I will kill you, I swear on the homeworld itself, no matter what the cost."

She'd been amused at the threat at the time, thinking it a father's love. Now she wondered if maybe she would have been better off letting Tali go back to the fleet. The girl was suffering and putting up quite the act to not show it. Tali had wanted to talk, about Jeff – when that happened, Shepard would see how accurate Jiong's analysis was.

When he got to Liara, Shepard grit her teeth. "Jiong , I'm pretty sure I know Liara better than you do. I don't give a goddamned shit what your fucking PRIDE ratings say, she isn't going to double cross me."

Jiong sighed. "Shepard, I'm sure you know what is in her thoughts more fully. I'm certain you know her history and life better than anyone. And I agree, actually – her loyalty to you is absolute. But that is only one perspective of her task aboard the Kazan. It isn't an outside analysis of her weaknesses or liabilities. And if you are seriously telling me you can be dispassionate and professional where she is concerned I will eat my hat. I wouldn't be in your shoes. I'd relieve myself of command."

Shepard frowned. "Then why did you go along with my idea? The marrying thing. Letting her join the crew. Fraternization is forbidden for just that reason. Actually, why the fuck haven't you put up more of a fight about her being asari? About what I'm doing?"

Jiong rolled his eyes. "Because she is the core of why you have changed yourself as a person. Our observers reported that much. You aren't the kind of person who will endanger others to protect Liara. You will only fight harder if she is in danger. I truly pity anyone foolish enough to harm her, as I've heard stories about what occurred on Edolus. And you need her, Shepard. I'm not blind. I am a firm believer in rules and regulations, but the Fifth Consideration of the Commissariat Code says very clearly to remember that humans make rules, rules don't make humans. There are things I am willing to overlook when they are .. necessary."

He paused. "I will admit there are elements of the Commissariat who looked very dimly on your liaison with her. And there will be elements of the SA command and the public that, once you get married, will complain loudly and cause trouble. My fellow Commissar, Susan, agreed with me that pressing the issue with you was the single fastest way to weaken your already damaged faith in the SA, Shepard. It doesn't matter if I think it's appropriate." He glanced away, frowning.

Shepard watched him curiously as his jaw clenched. "Alfred, just say ...whatever it is."

He exhaled. "Please understand. I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to ride your coat-tails to glory. And I wasn't lying when I said you could do a great deal of good for the SA. But I will admit the main reason I suspect the SA and the Commissariat has not stopped your liaison with Lady Liara is that it makes you extremely vulnerable. A violent BDSM-submissive relationship and dangerously deep bond with an asari barely more than a teenager who is the daughter of a galactic criminal? She's your weakness, Shepard, and all anyone has to do to wreck you is kill her. Whoever did so wouldn't survive your retribution, but after that you would … broken."

Jiong's eyes closed. "As to Lady Liara herself, she has, like many asari citizens, transferred her loyalties from the Asari Republic – which given their acts were already weak – to the Systems Alliance. In a strict sense of her political reliability I would say she's a solid 3.5. However, this is only the case as long as _you_ are also loyal to the SA. She will perform well at being a good soldier or being a good science officer only because she sees it at required to make sure you are doing well. If she has your faith and support, she will be unbreakable. She would rather die than betray you."

Shepard winced but nodded. "And?"

Jiong sighed. "Psychologically, she's a mess. She is _very_ young for an asari, barely the equivalent of a twenty year old, and bonding at that age makes mental stability much harder to maintain. Given the shocks to her mind over the past year, the fact that she is fragile should not surprise you. The most obvious problem is that her attachment to you is all that is giving her any stability in her life. You lead a very dangerous lifestyle, and if you die she is not going to survive, Shepard. That makes her a liability."

Shepard snarled. "She's stronger than you think, Jiong. She's had enough people try to tear her down without you joining them."

The man folded his arms, even his glacial patience at last snapping. "Christ! Do you think I am insulting her? I am saying she is _hurt_! She had to watch her own mother try to kill her. She had to bury her and then find out she was still alive and responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents! She had her entire people turn their back on her and send her off to die. She had to fight her mother again, this time watching her father nearly bleed to death in front of her and her lover get the shit beaten out of her. And then she had to kill her to save you."

Jiong narrowed his eyes. "If that wasn't enough she had to watch Benezia get up and then come to herself again, and know at the last her mother was herself again before being forced to watch her immolate herself in the most painful way an asari can die. She has a lot of pain, and the only thing she has keeping her sane – or more to the point, from just giving in to despair and misery – is you. Don't tell me that's healthy, or the proper mindset for any officer."

Shepard glared at him, her voice a whisper. "I already know that. I feel it all the time. I try to be there to help her with it, but what the fuck do I do? I can barely figure out how to get past my own shit!" She slammed her fist on the surface of the desk, before covering her eyes with her other hand.

Jiong's features softened, and he grimaced in self-loathing for a long second before he forced himself to continue. "If I was more of a man and less of a puppet, I would have had the guts to stop this when it was just a night of release. But you are bonded, and interfering with that would … make you unfit for duty or command. My conditioning won't let me destroy an asset of the SA like that."

He exhaled, glancing down at his hands. "I told you when we first met that I don't expect you to trust me, but I do need you to listen to me and take my advice in consideration when it comes to keeping you out of trouble. I didn't … don't … wish to alienate you. But I would rather you hate me and know the truth about what you face than like me and fall victim to consequences you haven't considered."

Shepard exhaled as well, clenching her fists. "So what am I supposed to do?"

Jiong folded his hands together. "I have given some thought to that. I would like Commissar D'Alte to work with Lady Liara in discussing her issues. Like me, she is trained heavily in psychology, and her xenospeciality is asari. She needs to take a good look at herself, and her own place in events. She is not simply an archeologist following in your wake any longer, and the situation you are in flies against regulations and hundreds of years of tradition in avoiding fraternization. Susan … will be able to give her guidance she needs." He paused. "You can trust her. I give you my word on that. She will not hurt Liara."

He exhaled. "I would also suggest you work with me to discuss your own issues. Your political officer is the only person you can be sure is not out to screw you over, and you have very few people you can confide in. Anderson has never been in this situation, nor has Von Grath, and neither of them are here."

He glanced at his padd. "Second, I would recommend you take into account the vulnerabilities and weakness we have discussed. Mr. Colms should be kept busy and made to understand that his grandiose ideas are secondary to his job as Weapons Officer. Mr. Dallas should be firmly put in his place and encouraged to find whatever spine and drive he has again. Mr. Cole should be trained and pushed to excel with the understanding that if he dies he will hurt his unit. Ms. Zorah and Mr. Moreau need to have a mutual discussion with you about if she really wants to be here or is forcing herself to be here."

Shepard nodded. "You forgot one person."

Jiong arched his eyebrow. "Who?"

She pointed her finger at him. "You."

For several seconds he was quiet, before taking off his hat. "Touche."

He glanced down, before slowly unwinding the sash around his waist and laying it on the table. "What I say is as … a man, or as much of a man remains within this flesh, Shepard. It is something that is private, and I would ask you not repeat it, excepting the fact that you can not hide such from Lady Liara."

He looked up. For a moment the iron hardness of his face was gone, leaving him just a handsome, intelligent man, sadness and frustration on his features. "No Commissar is truly loyal to the SA. We are taken as children, orphans from broken homes or victims of child abuse. In my case, my father beat my mother to death and sodomized myself and my younger brother, while my elder brother sold him out to the bounty services for cash, leaving us adrift. The SA took us in, and I haven't seen my younger sibling since."

He glanced away. "We are conditioned with drugs, with brainwashing, with surgery, with cyberware. You cannot have loyalty to something you are forced into obeying. A part of me that I try not to think about hates the SA. Hates humanity for needing something like Commissars in the first place. I hate criminality because it keeps me trapped in this half-life."

He looked back at her. "Commissars are absolutely reliable because we can't betray. We can't give anything less than one hundred percent. All of my previous assignments have been in situations where I was expected to support a senior officer. Know them. Plan with them. Become their friend. Meet their wives, smile at their children. Laugh with them." He looked away again. "And kill them if they betrayed their oaths. Do you know what it's like to smash in the skull of a man you called your friend and not be able to stop?"

Shepard closed her eyes. "Sadly, Alfred, yes, I do."

He only nodded. "Ah, Torfan. Then maybe you can understand my .. frustration. There are Commissars who desperately wish the situation was different. Who wish there was more focus on making people understand and less on punishment. But at the same time parts of my mind force me to see the criminal as worthless, fit only for execution or hard labor. How do I know which opinions are mine and which are merely that of the Commissariat?"

Shepard opened her eyes and looked at him. "You're not making me like my government any more with this conversation, you know."

Jiong shrugged. "You wanted to know my own assessment? I'm trapped, Shepard, in a job I have loathed for some time, in a mind that does not completely answer to my will. How would you deal with life if you were in love with someone, and you couldn't even say that to them or they to you because of blocks in your behavior? If you had to work with this person for years, wishing things were different? Commissars are not allowed romantic liaisons with other Commissars. That rule is absolute."

He looked at her, his face tense with emotion. "How would you feel if you had to watch Liara seduce another man for the sake of duty, when you could never kiss her? How would you feel to have to execute misguided men, women, and children, because your mind was not your own? I pitied Lady Benezia when she came free of her indoctrination for those few moments before the end. I know _exactly_ what it feels like."

"Loyalty is a concept that is won by admiration, by sacrifice, by mutual understanding. _Every_ Commissar has a 1.0 PRIDE rating, because we are not given the choice to serve."

He exhaled, leaning back. "And there it is, my assessment. I am a slave to the wishes of the SA. I am unable to change that right now. I would like to believe that I am, if not a friend, at least making the effort to try to be one. You accepted me and my assistance when almost everyone in your life you trusted had betrayed you at one time or another. The only way I can honor that trust in me is in letting you know that if the time comes when I must turn against you, I will not be able to stop myself, but I don't want to."

Shepard nodded slowly, and he continued. "I would like nothing more than to encourage you and Liara. I think you are good for each other. It makes me happy to see you laughing and being able to look forward to life rather than chasing death. But I am forced to tell you the truth, even if that makes you hate me for my words."

Shepard met his gaze and sighed. "I don't hate you. I didn't know you guys were that … locked down, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The SA has given me a lot of disappointment in the past few months, and … I'd lost track of some of that with all of .. this." She waved a hand at the room.

Jiong nodded. "Which was no doubt at least partially intentional. I do not speak of my own situation to incite pity, nor can I honestly say that you should hate the SA for what they have done to me. If they had not taken action, I would have died on the streets or ended up a child slave. If there is a liability in my service aside from my conditioning it is that I measure and distrust all around me. I can't even have a relationship with a woman unless it's a mission, and that is only lies."

He smiled, and retied the sash around his waist. "If I have loyalty, it is to and will be only to you. When I am advanced in rank high enough to have my conditioning removed and be free, it will be due to you dragging me along in your own career. It is not mere ambition that drives me. It is hope of a better day, Shepard." He finished the knot, and looked up. "We are all bound by our past and our burdens. But I have to believe there will be a day when what I have sacrificed pays off."

She nodded. "What will you do when that day comes?"

Jiong got a distant look in his eye. "I will be able to say what I have felt since I was a very young man. If I have nothing else, to be able to say the words to her once before I die is all I ask."

She nodded slowly. "... for what it's worth, I'm sorry you have to … live through that. Like that." She sighed. "And I guess I should cut you some slack. The only way you have to get out of that mess is to have me become important enough that they promote you, yet you have to tell me crap about Tali and Liara you know will piss me off. Hard situation."

Jiong shrugged. "I trust your ability to face hard truths, Shepard. You have done so your entire life."

She snorted. "No, I haven't. Liara had a conversation with my old squad-mate, Jason Dunn...she shared with me in our bond. He said I had all the closure there was to have but I kept clinging to my past and pain because I was scared of failing and fucking things up worse, so I pushed everyone away. That's not facing truth, it's hiding from it." She set her jaw. "But I can't afford to push people away now, whether I understand it or not."

She glanced at the padd, at the coldly worded descriptions of her crew. "I'll … talk with each of them. Let them know … where I stand on some things. I won't ignore this."

Jiong nodded. "That is all I can ask." He glanced at the status repeater on her wall. "It looks as if we're about fifteen minutes out from the relay. I should give you some time to prepare for the jump." He stood, placing his cap back on his head, and turned to leave.

He paused at the door. "Shepard."

She exhaled and looked up. "Yes?"

His face shifted, and then he firmed his jaw. "If there is one piece of advice I can give you, it is this. You say you can't help Lady Liara, that you are unable to help yourself. Yet you have helped her. You have helped many. If there is one thing in your profile that continues to limit your performance, is it your misunderstanding of pain."

She shook her head. "I would think I understand pain better than most. It lets you know you aren't dead."

Jiong's voice was soft, and held more emotion in it than she could ever remember. "Pain, Shepard, is anything you wish you could change, but can't. For a long time that was your whole life, I suppose. But you are no longer a troubled criminal, flung from battle to battle. There are others who depend on you. Others that require your leadership, your strength, and, yes, in Lady Liara's case, your ability to rebuild yourself and love, as trite as that may sound."

He met her gaze directly. "If you refuse to let go of the things that haunt you, you will be in danger of failing them all. Major-Commander Sara Shepard, Baroness and Spectre, is not the same person as Sara Shepard, sex-slave , criminal and Penal Legion soldier. That woman is dead. You are alive."

He exited the stateroom, leaving her lost in thought for long minutes. She stared at her hands, letting the words pour through her mind.

_Poor Jiong. There's a guy even more fucked up than I am._

She couldn't even imagine a life like his, forced to uphold that which he might not even believe in. A part of her wished he'd never told her.

And yet, he didn't let that hold him or stop him. He had a goal and he was working towards it, regardless of the pain, and the suffering, and his own ugly past that sounded damn near as bad as hers.

_Pain is anything you wish you could change but can't._

She let that thought roll around in her head a bit, and considered his words, rising from the chair and walking back across the corridor to enter her quarters. The pictures flickered up on her desk as she came in.

Voices from her past drifted across her memory.

Von Grath, bloodied after Horizon, grinning wryly and sitting in the wreckage of his command cruiser. _Shepard, eh? Well, don't just stand there, girl, help me up. Shattered leg and all that, I can't be seen laying about. I say, if you can take out a Glorious batarian in a fist fight, you are definitely wasted in the ranks. I'll have to steal you from Rachel._

Anderson, his bulk blocking the overhead lights, visiting her in the hospital after Torfan. _No, Sara. I don't give a damn what the brass says, or your teammates, or anyone else. This is not your fault. This is on the Systems Alliance. It's on General Tyrson, and the Fleet Master just shot him. The only thing you failed at is being a machine instead of a human being. And that isn't a failure. It's just life._

Rachel Florez, blood spattered and calm, standing over the corpses of her parents. _There is no such thing as 'moving on', Shepard. These people weren't parents, they were shit. Parents don't sell their children. Parents don't ignore them. You can't hang on to something you never had, so stop fucking trying. You're mine now. Not theirs. Never theirs._

Helen Chakwas, her eyes intense, in the medical bay of the Normandy. _A monster would not put themselves in harms way, again and again, every time they had to sacrifice soldiers, as if hoping to die alongside the men and women you had to let die to get the job done. I'm not as hard as you. I don't think I could do what you did. That doesn't mean it makes you evil._

She walked across the room and sat down on the narrow bed, picking up the soft folds of her Penal Legion blanket. Feeling the rough battered wool that had seen so many bunks, lockers and battlefields.

Greg Cole, his face framed in smoke, bandaged and battered from Eden Prime. _I just decided to stop holding myself in the past over bullshit I couldn't change. Got married. Had two good boys. Decided the only thing I could do to get past it all was to leave something behind I could feel clean about._

Liara, naked and beautiful, bruised and bleeding, eyes lined with hope and tears. _I am your strength, and you are mine. I am your light when yours goes dark, and you are my bravery when my courage fails. I am yours, if you will have me._

Her hands tightened around the blanket.

Liara, sitting at the piano in Anderson's apartment, elegant fingers drifting along the keys. _I learned there that sometimes what we hold most valuable to us is not what others expect of us, or even what we think we want. It is those things that cry out to our souls when we are still and quiet. A reminder that we are but sparks from the fire, flickering for a few moments of brightness before the dark. That we cannot hold onto everything we cherish unless we take time to actually cherish it._

Anderson holding her as she cried onto his chest. _I don't want to hear you ever wondering what will happen when you mess up, or what will happen when shit goes bad. I want to hear you tell me what you're going to do when you triumph. I want to see you live, child. I want to see you burn away all the chains people have thrown on you and see that smirk again, see that fire in your eyes._

She sat there, and then firmed her jaw.

"Hey you." She smiled almost affectionately at the blanket. "Been here since the start, I guess. Every fight. Every base." She rubbed the blood stain in one corner, the one staining the Alliance 'A'.

"For a long time I saw you as a reminder of how far I'd come. But I guess you're more of a reminder of how far I could fall. Of what happens if I fuck up again, or I'm not good enough."

She looked up, seeing the picture of Liara, and smiled. "I have to move beyond that now. Not for me. For … the people who need me."

She brought the rough cloth to her lips and kissed it, before standing. "VI. Suppress fire alarms, commander's cabin, my authorization."

She walked over to the omnifactory unit, opening the top with a button press, and kicked off the power cycle that would usually heat omnigel to cook it into shape. The circular opening at the top flared white hot, a puff of warm air shifting strands her hair from her face. It was fitting that a furnace of creation should destroy the last link she had to her ugly, blood-drenched past.

An image of the Penal Legion barracks, flaking white paint and the smell of blood and sweat. _You are all dead. From this day until you eat a bullet, you live only by the grace of the Systems Alliance._

"Not any more." She let the blanket fall, watching as the dry wool ignited almost instantly, burning with a bright, fierce light that cast flickering shadows behind her. With a flick of her wrist she tossed the rest of it in, staring as the flames ate it away completely, the last corner to go that bloodstained, frayed 'A'.

There wasn't much smoke, and she walked over to the corner of her room and turned on the venting to dissipate it, pulling out a cigarette as she did so. Lighting it calmly, she sat down on one of the chairs, staring at the deck.

Jiong's last words echoed in her head. _That woman is dead. You are alive._

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ore than once during OSABC, people PM'd or questioned how many times Shepard danced back and forth between opening up to Liara and getting over her own problems. Fear of opening up to someone, of saying confusing and deeply held emotions, is not something cavalierly overcome by those whose whole lives have been patchworks of misery and suffering. Tali and Joker's little relationship isn't something that can move forward under it's own power. Shepard is merely helping out.
> 
> Commissar Susan is another facet of the Commissariat. There are those like Colonel Dravus, cold and true fanatics, people who never had any faith in humanity save in it's incompetence, greed, and hate. Men like Dravus don't care about costs, and see only the biggest picture. If heads get broken, well, that's the price of progress.. There are those like Jiong – troubled, miserable, and tired, but determined to do their best to make the acts the Commissariat commits happen for a reason. If heads get broken, it's regrettable, but that is the nature of life.
> 
> Susan is a third view. Yes, it's a hard view, but sometimes you can't give into misery, or lose sight of the fact that fell acts are required in a fell universe. Susan has no guilt and keeps her hope not out of blind faith or stoic endurance, but simple belief in tomorrow. At the same time, she's less willing to seal off her emotions and care, unless and until a person turns into a target.

_M_

* * *

**THE SECOND ARC : THE PINNACLE OF SUCCESS**

" _If I had a credit for every time the personnel briefing on who I was assigned to work with was accurate… I might have one credit."_

– _Saren Arterius , 'Dying for the Cause'_

* * *

O-ATTWN-O

The trip to Watson was fairly short, lasting roughly a day. Shepard had spent the tattered remains of her night alone in her cabin, thinking very hard about how she could solve the problems Jiong had thrown on the table. Her team on the Normandy had issues she'd never addressed, and she had to wonder how much more effective they might have been if she'd picked up on them. But rather than waste time reviewing the past, she focused on the here and now. If President Windsor was right, she couldn't' afford weaknesses in her team.

And even if he wasn't, Liara deserved a better wife than some bitter old soldier never brave enough to turn her back on yesterday. With that thought she'd drifted off to sleep in her cabin. Liara wouldn't show up tonight, for fear of kicking off rumors, and Shepard found her sleep restless and cold.

She'd awoken in a somewhat foul mood, but a shower and a fresh uniform had at least settled her nerves enough to focus. She had three things she wanted to knock out – talk with the Supply Officer about her cabin and soundproofing it, talk to Tali and Joker about the mess they were in, and sit down with Cole, Vega, and the NCO's and review her marines. By the time that was all done, they should be at Watson.

Shepard spent most of her time in the morning touring the ship while organizing her thoughts. She made a show of learning the spaces of the Kazan and seeing the people under her command, although really she was looking for her Supply Officer to check on the status of her 'special order'.

Rather than have the VI hunt the man down, she decided to wander, seeing what she could see. Keep the crew on their feet. Sitting in the CIC watching stars drift by was boring, and Liara had vanished into the science labs hours ago. She could feel a bubbly sense of enjoyment from her bondmate, and decided if Liara was having fun, it was best to let her be.

Watching her nerd out with other nerds would just be too boring to deal with.

The mess decks were spacious, enough to seat a third of the crew at any time, with haptic displays for entertainment or ship status flashes lining the low ceiling. The tables were the same low-slung plastic sets on the Normandy, but the chairs were padded instead of bare metal, and the actually addition of a kitchen with three mess cooks meant an end to MRE's, dried rations, and the dreaded C-rats.

The lead cook, an amiable, grizzled black sergeant by the name of John Carter, quizzed her briefly on her food preferences while she ate a quick breakfast, and reassured her that the coffee was not crap. "That slick-ass supply officer got us three pallets of Vegan Golden Brown, and a couple of cans of actual Columbian from Earth. We still got the navy ration in the storage bays if we run out, though. Wouldn't stand to think on what we'd do with no coffee, ma'am."

She'd laughed and after finishing her meal, tried the coffee. It, as promised, was very good, and she took a cup with her as she continued on. The living areas were split between rows of hibernation coffins for the most junior rates, and small six man bunk-rooms for junior NCO's and senior techs. As usual, the rooms were split between sexes. Everything was neatly stowed and if she saw a few racy pictures on some of the lockers in the all-male bunk-rooms, she wasn't going to raise a fuss.

When she saw a pinup of what had to be a digitally edited image of herself in a very unlikely posture and a distinct lack of clothing, however, she called over the deck division NCO, a bearded chief named McAllister. "Chief, I am not going to rip someone a new asshole over that picture as long as it is gone and the person who put it up reminded of what isn't acceptable aboard a Systems Alliance ship by the next time I make my rounds."

The chief had face-palmed upon seeing the thing, tearing it off the locker with a flush of embarrassment. "I'm very sorry about this ma'am. Laskins, most probably. I needed a volunteer to clean the hangar bay with a toothbrush and now I have one. Won't happen again, ma'am."

She smiled and nodded. "Good. I don't care the if the boys have their porn, but there's a goddamned line, Chief. That also goes for the two asari we have on board – I do not want to hear any stories of them fucking their way through the crew OR being harassed."

He coughed. "Yes'm. I, uh, I'll have a word with Master Chief Ginsburg about it."

She smiled again. "Good. Quarters look sharp, Chief. Keep up the good work and let the crew know I'm pleased."

The exercise area had a couple of marines doing cardio, along with a disgustingly in shape Emilo Vega pumping iron. She'd waved and kept going, the chances of finding Dallas in the gym was about zero, after all.

She'd finally located him in the Lounge. The ship's lounge had more than a few sailors relaxing after watch in it, who stiffened to attention when she entered. "Knock that shit off. You're relaxing, so relax." She smiled at the grins that broke out, and stepped past to the far end of the lounge, towards where Supply Officer Dallas was leaning back in a chair.

She cleared her throat and he glanced away from a padd in his hand to meet her eyes. "Did you need something, ma'am?"

She nodded. "While we're on the way to Watson, I need to review a few things with you. Your office is on this deck, correct?"

He tucked his padd away and nodded, turning to a rather overdeveloped blond sitting next to him. "Shera, make sure we get those replacements filed in the system before midwatch. I will be in Sups if you need me."

He got to his feet, brushing back his hair and inclined his head. "Please follow me, ma'am."

The walk to his office was short, and the office itself smallish, mostly taken up by a large set of sliding haptic screens on a rack system. He gestured to one of the simple chairs in one corner while seating himself behind his own narrow desk. "Keeping track of the parts and supply chains for a heavy cruiser is something I've never done before, Major. I'm still sort of playing catch up on more than a few aspects."

She waved a hand as she sat. "That's fine. I want to make a few things clear. Jiong has no doubt already spoken to you."

He flinched. "Ah...yes he did, Major. Very clearly."

She leaned forward. "Good. I like clear. I like blunt even better, because I'm not much for fancy language and hidden meanings. You're not a stupid man so I shouldn't have to explain myself more than once. You will provide me the best logistics service you can. You will push yourself to master this system, to ensure my marines are not in danger, and to equip them in a manner from which they don't get shot to fucking pieces because the SA is blowing money on haptic art, fucking bubble fountains, or a goddamned old folks home instead of on the military."

She leaned back."I don't give a shit about what you've gone through, Dallas. I have no time for pity, for myself or anyone else. As long as you give me what I need when I need it, I could care less if the silly tramps in your department suck your dick until it falls off. But the first time you fuck up, or don't meet my requirements, you will be in a world of shit. And if you in any way endanger my ship, my mission, my marines, or God fucking help you, my officers? I will remind you why they call me the Butcher."

She folded her arms. "I trust we are very fucking clear?"

He gave a very shaky exhalation, eyes wide. "Y-yes ma'am. Very very clear."

She smiled brightly. "Good! Now I won't have to figure out how to kill you." She paused. "I wouldn't have to do this kind of thing if you'd get off your ass, Dallas. You've had a free ride for a long time, and I have a low tolerance for people who don't push themselves."

He looked at her a long moment before shrugging. "With all due respect... I'm not you, ma'am. There was a time I pushed myself, ma'am. Didn't get shit for it. It's one thing to tell me 'don't fuck up'. I get that. That's fair enough. But you and I both know my career isn't going anywhere. I want to get through the last three years of my deployment without being shot to shit fighting geth or whatever, and without being blown up, eaten by worms, killed by batarians or worse."

He fiddled with the loose datapad on his desk, not meeting her gaze. "Glory isn't what it's cracked up to be."

She sighed. "Perhaps not, Lieutenant. I think I can say I know that a lot better than you do." She softened her tone. "But I need a lot of support to get things done. There's crap coming ahead that the SA, that the Citadel races, aren't ready for. A big war."

He frowned. "Against the geth?"

She didn't answer that, merely continuing. "Regardless of the enemy, the whole reason I was kicked upstairs so hard is to prepare. That's why you were chosen. There's things the SA won't sign off on that I need to get the job done. If I'd gone up against Saren with stock weapons and armor, he'd have shot us dead in ten seconds flat."

He nodded. "I've done a lot of … um, off the books upgrading of our boys in the field, ma'am. I won't argue with it, but it's not something I can do without cash."

She nodded. "I've already got that handled. When the time comes, you'll get what you need." She frowned. "The main reason I'm here, besides reminding you of your job, is to inquire about the other equipment I need and had Jiong inform you off."

He nodded. "The Commissar did let me know what you requested. It wasn't easy to get, but I did it. I'm guessing you want a private medical suite in your quarters and security against bugs or spy beams?"

She almost said something then stopped. She'd never even considered someone might bug her quarters. That was both something she should have thought of and a good way to not have to explain that she wanted the equipment because her sexual escapades with Liara ended up with a bit too much blood sometimes.

"Let's just say that the crew doesn't need to see me shot to pieces. It's bad for morale, and I got torn up a lot when I fight. I saw the effect it had on the crew of the Normandy to watch me near death. As for bugs, yes. I have a … problem with talking in my sleep, and I am now handling a lot of sensitive information."

Dallas nodded, pulling open his desk. "Kinetic sound barriers are a good idea, but I went ahead and had the dockwrights inject the walls of your cabin and stateroom with sound-suppressive, lead laced foam as well." He pulled something out of the drawer and set it on the desk. "I have five very illegal sound suppressors that also double as wide-band ECM / signals jammers. The only sound egress would be that venting system they put in your quarters,and that vents to the outer hull where no one can hear anyway. Stick them in each corner of the room and one on the ceiling near the center."

He leaned back in the chair as she pocketed them. "The medical systems are easy, just double ordered spares for the medbay. You can install them in a cabinet, or pull out one of the wall segments and stick them in there. They're powered either by fuel cell or a direct wire connection. Someone from engineering could hook them up in an hour or so, they're stashed in the forward supply room with your name on them." He tapped his omni, her own blipping a message about manuals. "Simple to operate. Simple tissue and bone regenerators and a medpatch extruder. Keep it filled with medigel and lay the brace or the mat over the injured area."

She smiled. "Good work. And the bot?"

He exhaled. "A medical bot with VI controls is harder to locate. The only ones available on the open market are usually asari or salarian models, which is going to raise eyebrows even if I'm careful. They are not cheap, and tech-gangs tend to buy them to assist with certain … illegal modifications to slaves."

She folded her arms, eyes hardening. She remembered that all too well. "How cheap is 'not cheap?'

He shrugged. "For basic diagnosis? A good half a million credits. Trauma options cost more, anything specific to humans even more. Most are calibrated for salarians or asari."

She sighed. With Chakwas not available, having anyone else patch her and Liara up would raise far more questions than a medical bot would. Half a million credits would knock out the entire set of back pay she'd gotten from the SA, however. "I need one with human and asari options. I couldn't get a doctor with asari medical experience, and Lieutenant Commander T'Soni has been injured severely in the past, so having that option would be helpful." She paused. "Quarian would help too, for Tali, but that's not much use without a clean room."

Dallas scratched his head. "Ma'am..not to pry or sound paranoid...but it sounds more like you don't trust the doctors that we'll be assigned to take care of you or the, ah, alien crew members you brought with you."

Shepard gave a thin smile. Jiong was right, the man was sharp, just looking the wrong direction.

_Then again, who would expect you of all people to be shopping for medical gear to cover up what you do in the bedroom?_

She coughed. "I don't know you well enough to go into all the reasons...but you are very close to correct, Lieutenant. Let's just say I have enemies and I'd rather not let them take me or my friends out. There's a lot of people who are still bigots..."

He rolled his eyes and muttered. "Clearly they haven't hooked up with asari girls yet."

She managed to suppress a grin at that, but he was still lost in thought. After a moment he brought up a haptic screen from his desk and began tapping at it. "I might not be able to do this clean, but there's every possibility I could snap up some Sirta equipment that's fallen through the cracks. Noveria's a fire sale even now. I could probably even have it .. "

He broke off to tap at his screen again, frowning. "There's a shipment of Alliance wreckage – busted tanks and some armor units – being shipped to Arcturus for refit/scrap estimates. I think I can finagle a bot like the one you need onto the manifest and then use this nifty code Jiong gave me to lock it in cargo transit once it arrives, but you'll need to send someone to the warehouse to pick it up."

She gave him a smile. "You are good at this, aren't you? I don't even want to _know_ why you'd know about a shipment incoming from Noveria. Just do it. How much?"

He leaned back and grinned rakishly. "That's the wonderful part, Major, about being good at this. Since Sirta got it's face kicked in by the investigation of their connection to Cerberus by the NDC, they're not exactly up on database security any longer. Give me a day or two and I'm certain I can transfer a medbot into the holding facility with the scrap for a nominal payment to a local. Probably a few thousand creds, let's call it ten thousand."

She tapped her omnitool and forwarded that much to the ship's account, earmarking it "Training Supplies" before nodding. "I've moved that much to the ship's fund. Training supplies. What about the weapons and armor I mentioned? I'm not ready to give you the cash for them, but what kind of options are we looking at, and how feasible is it?"

He grunted. "I'm still working on that. Slipping over ninety suits of armor and an armory full of guns isn't as simple as playing with manifests. I have to run this past … well, people that don't like lots of attention and prefer payment in cash. The small arms will be the easiest. Lance cannons and anything on the Level III restricted weapons list will be the hardest."

She nodded. "You have about a month, Lieutenant. Maybe a bit more, depending on how long I'm stuck on Pinnacle Station. I am afraid that after we ship from there things are likely to get very lively."

He sighed. "Yes, ma'am. I'll get on it."

O-ATTWN-O

While Shepard was conversing with Dallas, Liara was sitting in the ship's science and signals lab, smiling gently as she reviewed test data from the sensor suite of the Kazan, listening to one of her techs finish a story about his first trip to an extrasolar stellar body.

Her team was composed of three enlisted men – all rather young human males – and two more senior techs, both female humans. They all had a differing scientific specialty, each one working with the others to cover all of the Kazan's various science requirements and sensor needs.

Jason Morris was into astrophysics, and responsible for probes and systems scanning. Chris Johnson was focused on particle analysis, and along with Deidre Scott spent most of his time on sensor interpretation in the local area. Vincent Maedel was FTL emissions, and paired with Lisa Graham on long-range sensors and blueshift tracing.

That left Liara to pick up the areas they didn't have personnel for, mostly ground topography, geological analysis and meteorology, for those times where troops would need to land on a planet. She'd spent much the morning going over the sensor suites and displays on the bridge.

It was a large amount of information to process at once, but Liara found herself upbeat. She was once again focusing on science and deduction, analysis and hard fact. Not scrambling about in battle, dealing with family politics, or facing emotional trauma. It was cathartic and relaxing, even with the challenge of so much new data to take in. And her team was easy to adjust to. Like her, they were scientists. The young men were a touch shy and the older females were almost motherly.

She relaxed, smiling as one sensor test finished flawlessly, and kicked off another, this one a sweep for particle traces.

The lab was not a large room – easily three times that of the Normandy's cramped space, but hardly expansive. As with most spaces on the ship, it was expressed in black floors, pale white walls, and overheads covered in pipes and wiring. Half the room was taken up by wall-height haptic displays that could be broken down by touch into zoom windows, extranet searches, or probe relay telemetry. Down the port and starboard walls of the lab were various workstations, each one slaved to sensors, analysis, or research. Racks of handheld scanners, portable lab equipment, and cabinets of chemicals finished out the contents of the room.

She'd never lead a team in the field before, and she'd been wracked with nervousness about being placed in charge of strange humans, but the men and women who answered to her were anything but difficult to work with. Her past science and archeological experience was, in their eyes, far more 'real' science than endlessly monitoring scanners, and she found herself smiling as they discussed their jobs and interests. Hearing them describe why they loved science and exploration made her remember her own love of research, of the thrill of finding a new Prothean ruin, of the wonder of learning from the relics of the past.

For the past hour she'd been engaged in a rambling, disorganized discussion with her science team about past explorations, while paying halfway attention to the boring sensor tests being automatically handled by the VI. Liara had just begun to describe her work on the first major dig site she'd been brought in on when the door chimed politely.

She glanced up as the slender, black-coated form of a Commissar filled the doorway. Liara took a long moment to recognize the woman as Susan, the Commissar who'd interrogated her in her hospital room on Noveria.

As then, the Commissar's bright , bubbly voice and shining main of ash-blond hair set off the grim lines of her greatcoat and the scarlet sash around her narrow waist."Good morning, sciencey types."

The pinched features of Vincent Madel loosened. "..sciency types? You can't really be a Commissar." He hissed as his teammate jabbed him with an elbow, a look of consternation on his face.

Susan laughed and flipped her hair out of the way. "We're not all gloom and doom, Mr. Madel. Unless we don't get our morning donuts or someone does something stupid like falsify test results to get a grant from the NARSC."

The young man paled, swallowing, and Susan smiled wider. "No worries. I am actually here to speak to Lady Liara."

Liara managed to keep her expression neutral. "A continuation of our discussion on Noveria, I presume?"

Susan made a shushing motion with her hands. "Oh no no no. I mean, you were... well. The thing with the biotics was _really_ scary. I'd rather not do that again. No, we – well, I – just need to talk about some protocol related stuff. Nothing big. You'll be back in here with the boffins in no time." She made a show of looking around, bright eyes taking in the equipment and arcane displays.

Liara sighed. She spoken briefly to Shepard about her meeting with Jiong, and had felt the wild swing of emotions Shepard had undergone during and after the meeting. It seemed it was her turn, now. Turning to her team, she put on a calm expression. "It appears our reminiscence period is over. I will return when I am able, please continue to run the sensor tests. It would help immensely if you could also make sure whatever documentation I need to review to stand watch is available."

Chief Diedre Scott nodded, her graying hair bobbing as she did so. "Yes, ma'am. We'll have it ready."

Liara stood, carefully laying down her datapad. "I am afraid the science officer of this ship does not have their own office...where should we have this conversation?"

Susan bowed, that perfect asari-form bow she'd used on Noveria. "Please follow me, Lady Liara."

The asari did so, letting herself be lead down the corridor to the elevator, and down to the deserted half-deck of level six. The rows of plants and trays of algae from hydroponics dripped as they stepped out, Susan leading her towards the far bulkhead. Racks of supplies cast long shadows in the dim light, the silence of the deck barely broken by the hum of the ship's engines.

Coming up to a stack of heavy crates labeled 'Rations, Survival', the Commissar triggered her omnitool. The wall paneling next to the crates smoothly split, revealing a small , rubber-floored corridor perhaps twenty feet long, with four doors along it's length. It ended in a circular room, a pair of energy-field containment cells visible along the back wall.

Liara glanced ahead and folded her arms behind her, subtly checking to make sure her neural brace was tight around her forearm. "I do not believe this space is shown on the ship's schematic."

Susan walked ahead of her, stopping to open one of the side doors and motioning her in. "Well, no, it isn't, but that's the Commissariat for you. Hidden tree-houses, decoder rings, secret handshakes. It's like the founders were stuck on old spy movies. Anyway, in you go. It's just my quarters, not a cell."

The room Liara entered into was a tiny, cramped cube. A narrow and hard bed with drab gray sheets was tucked against one wall, a short cabinet at the foot of it taking up that corner. Across from it was a small desk, a little shelf full of old-style paper manuals, an a small weapons rack containing several neural maces and what looked like a sniper rifle.

Liara's own rooms were three times as big. She frowned at the tiny space before glancing about, finally deciding to sit on the only chair. "This is somewhat cramped."

Susan sat on the bed, and pouted, an expression that very nearly made Liara laugh. "Sorry, Commissar's don't get much room. It's just me, Alfred, and the two lancers, so we don't rate much space, I suppose. And I'm so busy I usually just crash out."

Liara sat carefully, maintaining her poise. "What is this place – by that, I mean this entire hidden section – and why did you need to speak with me?"

Susan clasped her hands together. "This is our hidey-hole, Lady Liara. The Commissariat always has one on the bigger ships. Got a little brig, some equipment to handle people who have a problem with authority, and these tiny little bedrooms. Only one restroom and one shower,which means all the hot water is gone if I wait until last to get up."

She pulled a thermos out from the shelf built into the bed, unscrewing the cap and pouring out ice water into two small cups on the top of the cabinet. "It's just water, in case your throat gets dry again. Not that I couldn't use a real drink, but it's against regs. Just about everything is against regs, really. Kind of a drag."

She smiled, but Liara was hardly reassured even as she took a cup. "I cannot fail to note you did not answer my second question, Commissar Susan, as to why I am here."

The woman's smile faded a little. "You're here because of your PRIDE review. You recall the little question and answer session you did with Commissar Jiong on Arcturus after your skills evaluation?

Liara nodded. "I do. I fear he was not happy with my answers. I appreciate the Systems Alliance is important to humans, and now as a citizen it is also important that I support it. But I am … ambivalent about doing so unconditionally. My loyalty is to Sara..."

Susan nodded. "And no one, not even the Commissariat, can blame you for that, Lady Liara. I know from your point of view we probably dropped the ball quite a bit when it comes to Shepard, given her youth and past history. I'm sure that makes it hard for you to see the Alliance in a good light."

Liara sighed. "It is not only that, Commissar. If it is merely loyalty and duty we speak of, then the Systems Alliance at least respects Shepard's sacrifices, if belatedly. That alone is enough to earn my gratitude and respect. I would certainly put their interests above that of my own people at this point." Her voice became bitter. "It seems not even murdering my own mother or nearly dying at her hands is good enough for the Matriarchy or the clanless to hold me blameless."

Liara stared at her hands, laying in her lap. "If I do not hold the fascination many humans seem to for the concept of the Alliance...then at least believe me when I say Sara's duty to it binds me just as tightly."

Susan nodded. "Which is actually what Alfred got out of that conversation." Her expression turned grave, a downturn of the pert mouth that made her pixie-like face seem sorrowful. "But he also determined that you are very seriously hurt, ma'am. Psychologically and emotionally. That is a cause for worry."

Liara tightened her jaw, feeling heat rise to her crest in a mix of embarrassment and anger. "I am stable enough to perform my duties and present no danger to the goals of the Alliance."

Susan shook her head. "We know that." She seemed to struggle with some emotion before continuing, her voice laced with muted frustration. "Lady Liara, I can say with absolute candor that neither I nor Alfred think poorly of you. Your courage in dealing with what had to be a horrific situation with your mother, your ability to handle your isolation, and your bravery were all a part of the report."

She took a sip of the water. "Both he and I had to work very hard to get assigned this post, and while I won't say you were the main reason for it, you were definitely part of it. After being hounded, mistreated and sidelined by your own people and family, you don't deserve that here, and please believe me when I say I'm not here to interrogate you."

Liara folded her arms, her gaze severe. "As with our conversation on Noveria, Commissar, there is more not being said than is being said openly. If I accept your claim that you are not opposed to my being with Sara, then why the concern for my mental stability?"

She sighed. "I suppose that is a fair question. The Commissariat isn't known for it's compassion and playing nice, after all." Susan looked up at Liara blankly. "The hard truth is that Shepard is going to be placed under immense stress soon. Despite her showing a great deal of personal growth in the past few months, you are really all the support she has. It is no exaggeration to say that if something were to happen to you Shepard would fall apart. Possibly even commit suicide."

Liara shivered, but the commissar's lovely voice continued. "She's been hurt all her life. And in a lot of ways, so have you. And neither of you have anyone who is making sure the two of you are going to be okay."

Liara frowned. "My aithntar –"

Susan gave a wan smile. "Is not here, and even if she was, I'm not sure she's the one to help you through this. You didn't actually have any privacy in the hospital room you recovered in. We heard all of the story she told you. She's wracked with guilt and shame for a lot of reasons, and she's been out of your life for a century. From everything we know about her, she is even worse at suppressing and denying grief and loss than you are. Frankly, though, we're not concerned with her."

She sipped her own cup of water. "While I agree that in some ways your father – and David Anderson, and possibly a few others – can be sources of comfort and support, none of them are trained psychological councilors. They all have their own problems to deal with right now. Nor is conventional counseling going to work. A normal psychologist wouldn't have the experience to do much more than suggest you get out of the military and spend the next decade moving past your trauma, which is not an option."

She put the cup down and smiled sadly. "Both you and Major Shepard are psychologically battered right now, and if one of you goes down the other one does too. Shepard is a hard-ass who's endured more than most people, and you're a pretty tough cookie yourself, but sooner or later something is going to snap, and you're both going to pay the price. That's the danger of a bond, is it not?"

Liara shivered again, her mind working. "You feel I am a liability."

Susan shook her head, and actually scowled.. "No. I do not. Give me a little credit. If you were a liability, Lady Liara, you can already guess how the Commissariat would react." She softened her expression. "I … if anything, I am incredibly jealous of you. People discount the power of love,of being able to be one with another person. It always fascinated me about your people, how much strength they drew simply from one another. You are not a liability because you love Shepard, even if that is somewhat unconventional in terms of certain codes of conduct."

She crossed her legs, folding her hands over her knee. "But you are a danger to her if you don't deal with your own issues, Lady Liara. Shepard can't do it alone. She has problems she has to heal, baggage from the past you are all too familiar with. Having to deal with yours on top of that may not be something she can handle. She and Commissar Jiong had a lot to talk about late yesterday regarding your current state of mind... and it was decided that I would talk to you and work with you to see how we can help you move on."

Liara shook her head. "I am afraid it is hardly so simple as that, Commissar. I … have a great deal to work through in my head, that is true." She paused a long moment, considering. "I am not averse to … help, as you put it, although I am unfamiliar with the methods you would use. I do not know how many of my issues are due to my own inadequacies...or even what I am feeling, some days."

Susan tilted her head. "Guilt. Pain. Anger. How much do you hate your mother for what she did...and how much do you hate her for not seeing how badly her disapproval in your earlier years hurt you? How much anger do you have towards the Council of Matriarchs, I wonder? Your family? Your peers at the University of Serrice? How much guilt?"

Liara found herself clenching her fists as Susan spoke, not stopping. "Then there's the other thing you're probably still tearing yourself up about. We recorded a lot of things that happened on the Normandy. I mean, besides the bedroom romp. Mr. Dunn's rather sharp accusations of you using Shepard upset you very badly, almost as badly as what I said did. Shepard interfered in that conversation...but it's a question I think you have probably asked yourself."

She leaned forward. "That question is going to pop up again and again, you know. What hurts you, hurts her. What makes you despair or cry, cuts her like a knife. You can't afford to be weak, Lady Liara, or to languidly drift in her wake, or you will eventually be a liability."

Liara forced herself to relax her hands. "I cannot change myself overnight. I am .. I..." She paused, biting her lip and wondering why she felt a need to cry. "I am doing the best I can to be there for her. To listen when she needs to .. ramble. To be upbeat and remind her we are moving forward into our life. To try and do the best I can with this position I was given to show I support her. Yet I have to pretend I am nothing to her but a friend when others are around. To know that her leaders are still going to be using her as a tool."

She looked at Susan. "It must be easy for you, with your duty and focus, to suppress worrying if you are really good enough. You don't have to lay awake at night racking your brain to find a way to hide the fact that your body hurts and your soul is crying, because someone needs you to be strong."

Susan shook her head. "No, I can't say I have that issue. My conditioning doesn't let me even admit I love someone." Her voice was flat, almost hard now. "So when I say that I'm here to help you, please don't compare what you are going through to me, Lady Liara. As I said, I'm jealous of you. I will never get a chance to say what I feel to the person I care about, much less worry if I'm good enough."

Liara winced. "Conditioning..."

Susan nodded, the smile returning, but sardonic and self-mocking. "Yeah. Commissars are limited by mental blocks, brainwashing and cybernetics to always support the SA and suppress threats to it, all the time. It's not something we control. A part of me is here because someone very …"

She twitched, gritted her teeth,and exhaled, her hands trembling. "... ver...very .. important...to me..." Her voice eased. "...asked me to. Asked me to talk to you. To offer my assistance. To listen and provide what help and advice I can. I don't want to let that person down any more than you want to let Shepard down. But a part of me is doing this because if you are stable, Shepard is. And if Shepard is stable, the SA has one more weapon in it's arsenal."

Liara nodded. "I am sorry – "She stopped, at Susan's upraised hand.

"Lady Liara, don't feel sorrow or pity for my situation. My life and free will are a sacrifice, yes, but one I would willingly pay even if did have a choice. The only difference in my childhood and Shepard's is that I got a nifty interface chip shoved in my spine to orgasm from the whipping and beating I took and handed out, and instead of being picked up by a gang I was picked up by the Commissariat."

Liara's eyes widened in horror, but Susan continued. "People are always shocked because I'm cheerful...but I tell myself everyday that I have everything to be cheerful about. I protect the innocent. I punish the guilty. I stop those on the line of doing wrong from doing so by sheer fear. I get to beat the type of people that abuse little girls into bloody paste, and then I have a martini as I set them on fire." She shrugged. "I tell myself, even if I can't say it or act on it, that I know someone cares about me. I'm not a puppet. I'm a sacrifice, and the whole point of sacrifices is that you give up something to gain something of greater value."

Susan smiled again, and exhaled. "Every day is a blessing that I gain because I will not let my past dictate my future. I sacrifice myself for the people of the Alliance, because no matter how silly or selfish or stupid some may be, no matter how bigoted or blind to the galaxy around them – they're just people. We suffer so others can be at peace. And while I know I'm conditioned...I'd do that even if I _wasn't._ "

She tapped the sash around her slender waist. "I can't change who I am, but I can control how I look at the world around us. So can you. You're a princess of the Thirty, whether or not your people like you or not. You survived fights that would have killed many an asari commando. You went toe to toe with the second most powerful biotic in the galaxy when you weren't 100% and you sent her flying."

She smiled. "You didn't do any of that from weakness, Lady Liara. You did it because you are strong when you have something … someone... to protect and defend. When things get rough Shepard is going to draw on you for that strength, and you can't have it be something you give her only at great cost to yourself, or it will fail you both one day."

Liara shook her head. "Am I not a sacrifice for Sara? Is that not why, in fact, I am sitting here wearing a Systems Alliance uniform, light years from my home?"

Susan giggled. Liara stared at her, and the woman full out erupted in laughter. "Oh...wow. Lady Liara, do you have any idea how many men, women, other asari, and probably a few bent turians would love to be where you are right now, in terms of your relationship with Shepard? Do you think she would be happy if you hurt yourself for her sake? Do you actually think Shepard would sacrifice you for anything?"

She shook her head, still chuckling. "The main reason Shepard doesn't have a perfect PRIDE rating – despite giving over her whole life to the SA – is that we know she is bound to you. We'd never put her in a place where she has to choose between you and her duty because she would choose you. That's not the point."

Susan spread her hands. "The point is that if you can come to grips with your own issues, then you can help her get through the problems she has. The stronger you become, the stronger she becomes. The more you heal the wounds the last year have cut into your soul, the faster you can bandage hers up." She smirked. "And I have every confidence you can be stronger than you are now."

Liara sighed. "And you will help me with this?"

Susan nodded. "As much as I am able to, yes. I have extensive training on asari psychology, especially outcast psychology, both because of my background in usually being assigned to asari citizens of the SA and my own fascination with asari culture. My discretion is absolute. And while I can't guarantee the Commissariat doesn't bug, say, various living quarters or other areas of the ship, I can swear our little hidey-hole is secure. No one – not Alfred, not the SA, not the Commissariat – will hear what you and I speak to one another."

Liara gave her a long look. "Most...mind healing in my race is done through joining and melds."

Susan rolled her eyes. "Yet your suicide rate isn't much better than ours, Lady Liara. Just because someone knows everything about you doesn't mean they can magically fix it. And a lot of issues require the person suffering through them to come to some conclusion, some realization. Messing with memories and the way your people do it is, well, inelegant." She gave a childish looking pout. "It just sucks."

Liara could not help but laugh at her ridiculous expression, a smile breaking out onto Susan's face as she did so. The little commissar hopped up from the bed. "We won't start today. I figure you and the Major will talk about this some privately. I want you to understand that I'm not doing this just to make you a better support for Shepard. The Alliance owes you a great deal as well. From every report, you saved Shepard's life more than once, and without her the geth would have triumphed at the Citadel."

She opened the door leading out. "We owe you to help you with whatever we can. I'll take you back to the science lab,now … but we'll talk later."

Liara nodded. "Very well.

O-ATTWN-O

Tali nervously stood outside the door of Shepard's stateroom, her hands twisting around one another and her foot sliding along the smooth decking in a small pattern.

Her day had been spent in engineering and the core, running through various tests and fixing minor problems humans were too sloppy to see as critical. On a quarian ship, inefficiency was a slow death, and minor problems could pile up into life-threatening issues in a heartbeat. They rarely worked on – or had access to – brand new ships so fresh from the yards that stenciling from where metal was cut and welded hadn't even faded yet.

So some of the challenges – poorly machined hose connections, faulty trip breakers, wiring that never got bundled properly – were new to her. She had a hard time grasping why humans would let some things slide with the attitude of "don't fix it until it's broke", which to her sounded like an excellent way to die of asphyxiation some dark night when a group of minor failures cascaded off one another. To be fair, of course, given the ship was on it's shakedown run, the number of issues she found was actually surprisingly low. That just made her look harder.

She grudgingly admitted the staff working under her was good, maybe better than the Normandy's own tech team. Most of them were younger males overseen by older females – a pattern she had seen elsewhere in the ship. The human males were energetic, impulsive, and brash, the females bossy and more detail oriented.

Her assistant engineer, an older male Lieutenant named Casey Patrick, was a very fussy, organized man with a near-quarian level of attention to detail and an acerbic, biting demeanor that reminded her of her father in many ways, despite the curious nature of his accent. It was clear, after the morning shift, that the man didn't really care for the idea of being her subordinate. Unlike others, however, he didn't let that stop him from doing his job to the best of his ability and giving her a wealth of undocumented practical advice and shortcuts.

The engineering space on the Kazan, while more elaborate and powerful than the Normandy, lacked the same sense of sheer awe-inspiring power. Maybe because the core, as mighty as it was, didn't dominate the entire engine room, or maybe because, unlike the Normandy, the space was brightly lit and expansive.

She had her own little office, crammed with ship displays, blueprints, and status repeaters, a tiny desk filled with engineering manuals thicker than her wrist, and a haptic display and computer system clogged with support tickets for minor repairs all over the ship. She'd worked through this backlog quickly, assigning various techs to the jobs with an eye to their previous experience, and the only thing the Assistant Engineer did was tear into the first man who balked at having to clean the hydroponics filters.

"It's a cruiser, not a cruise ship, ye daft clown. Git down there, mon, and fix that filter afor I cram yer head into a locker."

Tali had chucked at Casey's thick Arcturus accent, and continued assigning jobs. She'd called him into her office to speak privately with him once the engineers were dispatched.

"I'm … still learning a lot about how to do this job. I appreciate all the help you gave me this morning, Lieutenant."

The man folded his beefy arms and stared down at her. "I dinna do it fer you, mumu. But fer the ship, and the team. I can't say what got in the Boss Lady's head to drag ye inta this mess and make you the Chief, but it's not my place ta complain." He scowled. "My duty canna be something I do only when I feel like it, or if the time suits me, seen?"

She nodded. "My people feel much the same way about engineering tasks. They keep the lives of everyone aboard safe and cannot be taken for granted."

Casey had snorted at that, his thick jaw jutting out, the curious braids of his graying hair swaying as he shook his head.. "Ye'll find most people are sloppy and lazy until the first time they get spaced or lose a mate to some such foolishness as not followin' procedures properly. Ye can't just talk sense into them. It has ta be beaten. It's good ye have enough brains in yer helmet to see the Core is the heart of the beast and to treat her with respect. Better that yer training is more than jus' glancing at the telly to see the green status, seen?"

He unfolded arms to rub his chin. "But respect from me or any one else is a thing you will have ta earn. I've a good eight years experience on you, mumu, even if I can't say my electrical or optronics is clean and tight as yer own. I trained that Chief of yers on the Normandy, Adams, and I canna say he did a poor job with ye, but I won't just sit and be eyes about it. If ye fuck something up, we're gonna talk to the Boss Lady, we are."

She nodded. "I can't ask for anything else. If you trained Chief Adams, I'd be happy to learn what you have to teach me. And if I get something wrong, I'd much rather get yelled at by Shepard than have it damage the ship or get someone killed."

The man had grunted in an approving fashion. "At least ye aren't full of yerself. Git out of this cubby, then, mumu, and lets go over ta the LSU for a looksee."

She'd finished the morning learning a great deal about the support machinery aboard larger Alliance ships, which far outstripped anything the Normandy had, or for that matter most quarian ships that weren't liveships. The Kazan could create limited air, grew it's own food, and recycled 99.4% of it's water. There were emergency backups for nearly every critical system, and she began to see why human work seemed so slipshod – no quarian vessel had so many robust and interconnected backup systems.

Her learning experience had been cut short when she'd gotten a terse message on her omni-tool to meet with Shepard in her stateroom at 1700 hours. She'd thanked Casey for his insights and, after wiping down her suit with cleansing towels, made her way to the bridge and the door she stood in front of.

Her omnitool chimed, and she tapped the door panel. "It's Tali, Shepard."

The door opened, and Tali walked in, glancing around the small space. Shepard sat at her desk, which was covered in datapads, closing a dog-eared manual of some kind and tossing it into a drawer in disgust. "Hey, Tali. Have a seat." She rubbed her temples. "I'm starting to think I'm too stupid to do this job."

Tali smiled behind her mask and sat, eying Shepard's posture. She was clearly tired, with an air of being overwhelmed visible in the collection of materials on her desk and the weary set of her shoulders. At the same time, there was a subtle relaxation in her posture, as if she'd been carrying some heavy weight and set it aside.

Shepard swept the pads into a neat stack and set them to one side before facing Tali squarely, hard blue eyes direct and clear. "You needed to speak to me about Joker, you said. I'm sorry I've been tied up with other things, but I figured you wouldn't bring it up unless it was important."

Tali nodded, swallowing. She had no idea how to say what was on her mind, but told herself Shepard was, as she'd told her recently, her friend. "It's … complicated."

Shepard's expression flickered. "I used to think that about Liara, too, Tali. Then I realized it's not. It's hard to just admit the words, sometimes, if you aren't used to doing so. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what to say, but it's not complicated if you just let it out. Scary, maybe."

Tali thought over this and shook her head. "It is scary, but in my case it's also complicated." She forced herself not to wring her hands together. "You already know that my father isn't happy I'm here, and that part of the reason I came along was that I didn't feel ready to go home. I'm happy that you felt I was good enough to serve at this position, and I'm proud to be here."

Shepard smiled. "You earned it, Tali. And frankly, your father is a massive dick. Anything that pisses him off tends to be high on my list of Things To Do."

Tali laughed. "He...he's just worried about me. Too much so. I .. going home would have been like being in a jail. It's not that he doesn't believe in me, but he hates the idea of me getting hurt." She sighed. "I'd never thought I would hear him say he was proud of me, but he did. He doesn't think I'm ready for this, but ..." She shrugged. "That's not what I'm confused about."

Shepard nodded, and Tali continued. "A big part of me agreeing to take this role and come along was from not knowing what to … do... about Jeff. The crew of the Normandy was nice enough, and a few of them went out of their way to help me out, like Wrex and Ashley. But Jeff is …. the one who spent the most time with me, outside of Engineering. Messages on the omnitool. Cheering me up when I ate, or felt lonely. When we started t-talking I didn't.. expect things to go the way they did."

Shepard nodded again. "You aren't the only person who's gone down that road, Tali. It just happens, I suppose."

Tali bit her lip. "Yes, and Jeff had no one to talk to who didn't look down on him, or pity him, or not see how badly their little slights and actions hurt him. I did. I … guess I got a bit closer than I expected, really."

She glanced away, fixing her gaze on the carpet. "On the Flotilla, anyone interested in me was probably doing it because of who my father was. I was isolated from most people, kept within the Zorah sections of the Rayya, one of our Liveships, rather than my father's ship. I wasn't given much choice in what to study or do – I was just trained, in the same way my father was, and his father."

She sighed. "My Pilgrimage was my first time living on my own, making my own choices. I nearly got killed half a dozen times in a few weeks, and when I arrived on your ship I was scared, and lonely. Jeff was the first person who looked past my suit and saw me as a person, not … an asset, who acted as if there was nothing weird about a person who couldn't eat the same food, or show you their face."

Shepard sighed. "I saw you as a very brave young woman who'd risked her life to give us the help we needed, Tali. Not as an asset, or a thing."

She smiled. "I know, Shepard. But it's not the same. You were … are … a little scary. The first time I saw you, in Fist's club... you were terrifying. Unpredictable. Hard to get close to. Your stance, like I said that day in engineering, was like a wall shutting everyone out. I don't mean to say you – or anyone else – treated me badly. Jeff just saw .. more, I guess."

Shepard leaned back. "There's nothing wrong with being attracted or falling in love with someone who sees the person you are, no matter if you're wearing a suit or trapped in your own past. That's how Liara dragged me out of my own personal hell, Tali."

The quarian nodded slowly. "Yeah." She glanced down again. "But I don't know what to do from here. It's not like I can …" She gestured at her suit. "I'm not even human, like he is."

Shepard snorted, and Tali looked up, a bit hurt, before Shepard spoke. "That didn't stop Liara and I, did it?"

Tali sighed. "That's not the same thing, Shepard, and you know it. This suit -"

Shepard made a slashing motion with her hand, mirth fading. "Bullshit. Joker is not the kind of person who minces words or fakes emotions, Tali. If he's interested in you, he doesn't care about that suit, or your being human, or the fact that you doing anything more than hugging him would cause him pain." She sighed. "He's a very badly hurt kid, who may be here less for the right reasons and more to simply rage against God and society that traps him in his flawed body."

She glanced up. "But he's also here for you. And you should know why. YOU, Tali, gave him mobility. Humans had the tech and could have done what you did, but they would have cost too much for him to afford. He'd been trapped in pain and you set him free from that, without asking a thing. You spent time with him and gave him something to hold onto. There's nothing wrong with falling in love, and you shouldn't be surprised he did the same." She paused. "But I do have to ask if you have really figured out yourself what you want."

Tali sighed. "No, I .. I haven't. Part of me wants to go home. Part of me wants to be here. Part of me just wants to take off this damned mask and let him touch me, just one time. I don't want this to be a silly crush, or me … being a silly girl, wishing things were different."

Shepard was silent for several seconds before speaking. "I'm not real good at this sort of thing, Tali. Hell, I couldn't even figure out the problems and wants of people I'd been serving with for years and ended up being blindsided when someone felt they loved me. What happened with Liara was a mix of .. a lot of things, and it could have gone many other ways."

She glanced up, meeting the soft glowing gaze of Tali. "But I can say this – you won't be any happier if you turn your back on your feelings and pretend they aren't there. Maybe you will get hurt and maybe you'll both be better people. But you have to be honest with yourself, first."

Tali swallowed. "I think I'm using him as... as an excuse not to return home. As long as we just … talk and hang out and … wish things that won't ever happen, I can tell myself that I should stay."

Shepard folded her arms. "Tali, running in place like that is crap. Trust me. I did it for a long, long time. But at the same time, you need to make sure that you want to be with him for the right reasons. It can't be just because he makes you feel better about yourself, or feel wanted. And it damned sure can't be because you think convincing him to come with you whenever you head back to your people will translate into you giving them a Pilgrimage gift of worth."

Tali started, badly shaken by that statement, and stammered something, but Shepard cut her off. "He needs you because he's in pain. He's not out here because he loves the Systems Alliance, Tali. He's here for the same reason I was for the longest time. It's an outlet to scream out the pain you feel. You push yourself to be the best so you can tell yourself at night it's okay if no one talks to you. If no one sees the real you. You take pride in your skills because you can't take pride in yourself."

She picked up the top datapad on the small stack she'd made. "This is Commissar Jiong's report on Jeff. You know what it says? Minus the fancy language, he's a bad-ass pilot who wants to be normal. Except he can't. He's got that mouthy streak and that habit of cracking jokes because he's fucking depressed, Tali, so depressed that you may be the only thing in his life that's good."

She leaned forward. "You may think you aren't worth the time. You may worry your dad thinks you're a silly kid. Hell, you may think you came in here to ask me to talk to Joker for you. But you are the only thing he has...and I'm not going to let you shy away from telling him exactly how you feel and that you need him too."

She huffed and leaned back. "I don't have time to run a goddamned love boat, Tali, but I need your head in the game. If I have to I'll have Dallas prep a clean room, take the ship to zero-G, and let you two work out your hormones."

Tali was immensely grateful for the mask that hid her blush, and yet trembled under the harsh crack of Shepard's voice. "I... "

Shepard shook her head. "I don't want to be a hard-ass about this...but it's the only way I got it through my own thick skull that you have to risk being hurt to stop fucking hurting sometimes." She tapped her comm panel. "Pilot Moreau."

Joker's bored voice sounded over the comm. "Yes, Major."

Shepard eyed Tali while she spoke. "Time to the Watson translation, at current speed."

Joker's voice came back a moment later. "Four hours, thirty two minutes. Since we're going at all ahead senior citizen instead of flank. Ma'am."

"Good, and stop with the ma'am bullshit. You only get polite when you're pulling something. Get one of the off-watch pilots to relieve you and report to my stateroom as soon as possible, preferably without breaking anything and bleeding on my brand new cruiser."

"God, what a hater. I'll be there in a few."

She clicked off. "This stateroom is private. I'm going to talk to my marines. You are going to sit here and talk to Jeff. When I come back, I'm going to talk to the both of you." She stood.

Tali sighed. "I don't know if this is a good idea..."

Shepard forced a smile. "Tali, I'm not … good at being a friend, but I'm trying. I danced around my own issues with Liara for a long time before she basically MADE me open my damned eyes and see what a fool I was. Since I can't talk about this in a way to make it all magically better, the least I can do if I call myself your friend is to help you get past the mistake I made."

She turned. "VI, message Lieutenant Cole, Senior Chief Vega, and the senior NCO and Lieutenant of each detachment of marines to meet me in Marine Assembly, on the double."

She tapped her omni a moment later. "Pressly, going below. You have the deck and the conn. Joker's coming off watch for a bit to discuss something, but he'll be back up well before translation. Comm me if anything comes up."

She turned to face Tali. "Just talk, Tali. Trust me."

* * *

 


End file.
